Re:Naruto Uzumaki
by Nax Oll
Summary: I though that I knew the Naruto world inside out. That it was full of the illogical and what didn't make sense. Turns out that nature corrects any mistakes it finds naturally. In this world, ninja really are brutal. Hidden villages do hate each other. No matter. I'll change the world in a way the real Naruto would have never been able to.
1. Rebirth

**AN: When I began writing this, I didn't have much experience in writing (I still don't), so I'm sure that many things won't go down well with everyone. Nevertheless, I'd like to finish this story in a decent manner, so I'd appreciate it if you stuck until the end and read through the various ways I try to deal with the story's shortcomings before complaining about an aspect of the story you don't like - I may have already answered that question later on in the story.**

 **Also, I should warn you that I almost** _ **completely**_ **disregarded canon, so many actions the MC does will be completely different to canon. Enjoy.**

I don't own Naruto.

 **Rebirth**

I can never forget that day – the day it all started. Before that day, I had just been an average 17-year-old student. There was nothing remotely special about me. Well, apart from the fact that I loved anime much more than most people do. I wasn't an otaku though! It's just that I loved daydreaming about living in the anime world. There was one anime in particular that I loved – Naruto. The story of that little brat turning into one of the greatest ninja ever really appealed to me much more than anything else.

So it was an average day, not too sunny and not too cloudy, and I was walking back home from school. I lived near one of my friends so I was walking with him. The streets were busy as always with the traffic of people returning from work. I was just casually talking to my friend about one of our teachers when suddenly, I heard a woman scream. My friend and I whipped our heads round, just as everyone else nearby did, and we saw a woman on the edge of the road, a few metres behind us, reaching out to the middle of the road. Why was she reaching out? Well, there was a little girl standing in the middle of the road. I remember hearing a loud beep, and turning to see a huge truck rushing towards the girl. The driver was trying, in vain, to slow down the truck.

When I saw the truck, everything stopped. Colours faded from the world, and each beat of my heart echoed loudly. It was then that I realized that the girl was about to get run over. My eyes widened ever so slowly as the truck crept closer to the girl.

 _The little girl's about to die! I've got to do something!_

As soon as those thoughts flashed through my mind, the world returned back to normal. I exploded into action, bursting forwards at a speed even I didn't believe I could achieve. Out of the corner of my eye, I realized that my friend was doing the same.

 _Huh, what was that saying again? Birds of a feather flock together? I guess it's true._

We reached the girl simultaneously, both of us pushing her with our outreaching hands. Seeing that she was safe, I half-sighed.

Why did I half-sigh? Well, because the truck smashed into me before I could complete the sigh. I was pushed back against my friend, and we both flew back several metres before hitting the ground. I landed on my right arm, and I remember hearing a loud snap.

 _Well, I'm pretty sure I just broke my arm. I'm done for, aren't I?_

My friend had smacked his head against the ground when he landed, undoubtedly killing him instantly. A fraction of a second later, the truck's huge tires ran over my fragile, human body. After a while, I could no longer hear the multiple snapping of my bones.

 _Goodbye, world._

The lights bled out of my eyes until all I could see was darkness. I saw nothing, I felt nothing, and I heard nothing. In that moment, I well and truly believed that I had died.

 _I wonder if I'll see my friend._

I kept on drifting in the nothingness for what seemed like forever. Then again, I was dead, so maybe I couldn't really sense the passing of time.

 _Wow, death is even more boring than my history classes…_

Suddenly, I felt something. It was like a tug deep inside me, like someone was trying to pull my very soul.

And it _hurt_.

I would have cried out if I could, but the darkness was suffocating me. Then I began feeling a rushing sensation, as if I was being pulled at a very high speed. The darkness began getting stripped away in strands, replaced by blinding light.

 _What's going on? Did I survive?_

The pain soon became unbearable, and just as I felt as though I was about to faint, my senses exploded. There was light everywhere, I was freezing cold, the noise was deafening, and my senses were just generally overloaded. Slowly, my senses calmed down until I could open my eyes. When I opened them, I was greeted by a pleasant sight – another human.

 _I survived!? How!?_

As my eyes slowly focused on the human, I realized I was looking at a woman. The first thing that I noticed was that she had flowing red hair. I then saw her eyes, which were coloured a blue like the ocean. Her skin was slightly pale, as though she had recently exerted herself.

 _Is this a nurse or is it heaven?_

I would have carried on musing over her beauty if I hadn't realized that she was holding me. Shocked, I looked down at myself and almost had a heart attack.

I was a baby! I was in the body of a baby!

I tried moving my arms, but it proved too hard for me.

 _Oh yeah, babies are too weak to move when they are just born… wait, why am I so calm about this!?_

I needed explanations immediately, but instead, the woman turned away from me and began talking to someone behind her.

I couldn't hear much.

Then a man appeared from behind her. The man had messy yellow hair and faint blue eyes. He seemed like the kind of guy that all the girls would fall for.

 _What is going on!? There's no way that this guy is a nurse as well!_

When they began talking again, I heard the name "Minato".

 _Wait, what!? … Now that I look at him, that guy really is Minato! That means that the woman is Kushina! What are two Naruto characters doing here?_

Then I caught the word "Kyuubi", and I instantly understood everything. I had been reincarnated into Naruto's body.

 _…_ _I don't even know what to say… hell yeah! I've been reincarnated!_

Because of my extreme excitement, I forgot about the situation we were in. After a while, when I had calmed enough, I remembered what had happened in the anime. They were going to seal Kurama into me. Sure enough, when I turned my head slightly I could vaguely see Kurama chained to the ground. I was tired, and I couldn't focus my eyes properly, so I drifted in and out of consciousness. When I felt something warm splatter onto me, I forced myself awake.

 _This warm liquid… blood! It's this scene again!_

I could do nothing as I watched my parents saying their final words to me before dying. I had never really been close to them (well, I had _never_ been close to them), but I still loved them in the anime, and watching them die in real life was even sadder than watching them die in the anime. Unfortunately, I knew that it had to happen since I couldn't do anything. I didn't blame Kurama since I knew that he was being hypnotized by Obito. I just felt sad. Soon enough, they died, and I was left in silence for a while.

 _So I've been reincarnated into the Narutoverse… I sure am glad now that I was a devoted Naruto fan, that extra knowledge will be vital from now on…_

A few minutes later, Hiruzen arrived, followed by a large number of ninja. When he saw the dead bodies of my parents and the mark on my stomach, he understood everything that had happened. What followed was him saying stuff about how Minato and Kushina had died as heroes and that I would be seen as a hero. I tried staying awake, but my new-born body was having none of that, so I succumbed to sleep pretty quickly.

...

When I woke up, I found myself in Hiruzen's office. The man himself was talking to several ninja, but the forms were too blurry to recognize. After a while, he dismissed them and walked to me. Looking straight into my eyes, he said, "You are a hero, and you will become a legend. Believe in yourself."

I smiled for the sake of making him happy, and he smiled at my response before walking off.

 _You bet I will._

...

I was sent to an orphanage after a few weeks of living with Hiruzen. I spent the majority of my days sleeping, eating and planning what I would do with this amazing chance. I was too young to begin ninja training, so I began seriously thinking about the possible effects of every event I was planning to change.

 _I might do something about the Uchiha Clan Massacre, maybe steal a Sharingan or two… but how will I avoid guards, and who will I get the eyes from? There are so many factors to consider…_

At that point my thoughts were interrupted when a spoonful of mush was forced messily into my mouth. Already, despite being a toddler, I could sense the hatred that the orphanage workers had for me, and I was disturbed by the animosity they showed towards a child that could barely move.

Of course, I couldn't do anything to them precisely because of the fact that I needed them to survive, so I could do nothing other than to grit my teeth and act like a typical child.

...

My first birthday passed by _agonizingly_ slowly. My body was still too underdeveloped to perform more than a few laps around the orphanage garden, which would leave me exhausted for most of the day, so I couldn't seriously begin training yet, and I wasn't allowed out of the orphanage at all, resulting in 12 months of virtually nothing for me to do. Only a few things kept madness at bay.

Firstly, after my ears were finally developed enough for me to be able to hear adults speaking clearly, I realized that the language spoken was Japanese. I had never really thought about what it would mean if I had to learn an entirely new language, so I was relieved when I discovered that I didn't have to learn a foreign language.

Secondly, chakra - simple as that.

At first, I knew what I was looking for, but I didn't know how to find it. I spent several weeks struggling in vain to detect any form of chakra, and I was saved by the orphanage workers almost 2 months after I had been born.

From what I understood of their gossip, it was mandatory for orphanages to allow all of the children to feel the sensation of chakra at least once in hope that the children would be able to unlock their chakra independently. This session came in the form of a kunoichi who had volunteered to give the children their taste of chakra. She went round the orphanage, holding each child's hands in her own and, from what I could tell, pouring chakra through their hands from one of her palms to another.

When it came to my turn, I almost burst out laughing at the look on her face. She was gritting her teeth and breathing heavily, as if scared that I would attack her. She roughly grabbed my hands and sent a surge of chakra through my hands for a fraction of a second before leaping back like she had been stung.

If anything, I was the one that had been stung. The surge of chakra that she had released had been far too much for what a normal baby would be able to handle, and if it wasn't for the fact that I had the pain tolerance of an adult and was a Jinchuuriki, I'm sure it would have hurt enough for me to scream out loud.

At any rate, the mocking mood that I was in quickly descended into rage.

 _I'm a kid! A fucking kid! Why is she doing that to a kid!? Is she mental!? … No, wait – everyone here is like her! Everyone's mental here, treating a kid like a monster!_

Although I was seething, I was still able to remember the sensation of chakra flowing through my hands. Because of that, I was able to finally detect chakra a few days later.

What can I say about it? It felt like the air around me was a little denser than usual, and I could sense disruptions in the air far easier. Inside my body, it felt even stranger – it was as if I was constantly being stroked, but inside my body rather than on my skin.

After unlocking my chakra, I finally felt confident enough to pay Kurama a visit, so one night, instead of falling asleep, I lay still in my bed, picturing the sewers that characterized the Kyuubi's prison. I wasn't aware of exactly how long I had spent in this way, but all I could tell was that the transition between lying in bed and lying in the sewers was blurred, and soon I found myself facing Kurama's prison.

"Kyuubi! If you don't mind, can we talk for a bit?" I called out, staring intently into the darkness beyond the seal. After a while I felt disturbances in the air, and I could tell that Kurama was rousing. I waited patiently for him to approach the seal, and I could soon glimpse a pair of demonic eyes glaring down at me. After a few seconds passed in silence, I took the initiative.

"Nice to meet you, Kyuubi-san," I began. I added the respectful suffix to hopefully give him a better starting impression of me. "I'm Naruto."

I had the feeling he wanted to say something, so I paused and waited for him to speak. **"… You're a kid,"** he pointed out in the end.

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you surprised at the fact that I can talk? Or that I know about you?"

 **"Both."**

Although he only said one word, I could feel his expectation – I could sense that he wanted me to explain. Not willing to aggravate him, I swiftly began speaking.

"What I'm about to tell you, I'm only telling you because you can't tell anyone else, and because by telling you this I want to gain your approval. In other words, I want your power."

The Kyuubi snorted. **"Typical humans. I've lost interest, so go away."** He closed his eyes and began retreating.

"Please, not so fast, Kurama-san."

When I said his name, his eyes shot open and he shoved his face as close to the seal as possible, allowing me to see his entire face.

 **"How do you know my name?"** He growled the question softly, but his voice was dripping with nothing but killing intent.

"That is what I was about to explain to you, Kurama-san. However, I want a guarantee that you will cooperate with me in the future in return for telling you this."

 **"Hah! Don't get cocky, human. Besides, what use is an empty promise that I can break at any time?"**

I smirked. "Tell me, Kurama-san: do you hate the Juubi?"

As I expected, his eyes narrowed and his face tensed visibly. **"Of course. But what I want to know is, how does a child like you know about the Ten-Tails?"**

"Alright, I'll stop stalling now." So I proceeded to tell him about my unique situation – namely, the fact that I had reincarnated. It took him a while to believe.

 **"So, how are you going to prove that this entire universe was simply what you called an 'anime' in your world?"**

"Well, I should know things that I have no right knowing. Ask me a question, and see if I can answer it."

A slight smirk danced on his face. **"Alright then, how about this: where is the Juubi currently sealed?"**

I sighed in relief. Honestly, he might have asked me a question that I didn't know the answer to, but thankfully this was simple.

"In the moon, and it is currently being guarded by Hamura Otsutsuki's descendants."

The Kyuubi stared at me as if I was some kind of mutant. **"… You…"**

"Now do you believe me?"

He shook his head vigorously. **"Wait! … Let me ask you one more question."**

I nodded. "Of course, feel free."

 **"Tell me… why you think I attacked Konoha…"**

"Sure. A guy who was pretending to be Madara Uchiha used his Mangekyo Sharingan to force you to attack the village." I could almost laugh at how smoothly this was going.

 **"… You're right, but what do you mean when you say he was pretending to be Madara?"**

"Exactly what I said. Although Madara had already controlled your mind before, the man that controlled your mind this time is Madara's apprentice – Obito Uchiha."

The Kyuubi rose up in shock. **"How… oh, that's how you know. I see, I believe you now."**

"Finally!" I exclaimed. "Now, do you promise to allow me to use your chakra freely?"

The Kyuubi snorted again. **"In your dreams. Sure, I owe you for telling me about Obito and Madara, but I don't owe you that much."** Completely ignorant of my growing irritation, the Kyuubi settled its head on its paws and shut its eyes.

I resisted the urge to facepalm in anger – I needed to give Kurama a good impression after all.

"Hey, did I tell you that I also know what's going to happen in the future?"

 **"… And why should I care?"**

"Maybe because a certain Juubi will be making an appearance?"

Kurama's eyes shot open as it got on its paws again in surprise.

"At the expense of the rest of the tailed beasts?"

The Kyuubi growled. **"Well then, you'd better make sure that doesn't happen, don't you?"**

I sighed yet again. "But don't you see, Kurama-san, that protecting you will be easier _with your help_? I mean, in case you haven't noticed, I'm just a child."

The moments of silence that followed raised my hopes.

 **"… Argh, fine!"** Kurama exclaimed. **"I won't actively try to take over your body whenever you use my chakra. Happy?"** He gave me a dirty look before retreating back to the darkness behind him. **"Now leave me alone before I regret my decision."**

I beamed at him. "Thanks, Kurama-san! I guess I'll see you another time!"

And I promptly collapsed in my bed, too tired to think after the draining talk with Kurama.

...

I didn't dare to use Kurama's chakra while I still lived in the orphanage, but I didn't have any problem using my normal chakra. After playing around with chakra or a while, I came to the conclusion that my chakra control was too good to be true.

 _I can already keep a leaf stuck to my forehead after only 4 months… while it's true that I don't have an incredible amount of chakra, realistically speaking, I shouldn't be able to do the leaf concentration exercise, considering the prisoner inside me…_

After a bit of pondering, I came to the conclusion that it must have had something to do with my reincarnation.

 _Since chakra didn't exist in our world, I was subconsciously used to a world without chakra. However, now that I've been plunged in a world with chakra, I can sense the differences between having and not having chakra far more keenly than the average person, giving me a higher sensitivity to chakra…_

At any rate, I had good chakra control. I knew that I wouldn't be able to maintain this level of chakra control as I grew since my chakra reserves would likely grow faster than my chakra control, but this was still far better than any child could hope for.

…

I was seriously beginning to dislike the orphanage. Since I was banned from leaving the premises I was very limited in what I could do. Every day I would either stay in my room, planning my exact moves in the future or training my chakra control, or I would try to do some exercise in the orphanage garden. Even this was troublesome, as the kids had detected how I was mistreated by the adults and took it upon themselves to make my life as miserable as possible. Of course, it didn't work, since I usually just ended up hiding from them in the premises, but it _was_ getting quite annoying.

 _And it's all because of the adults. They're the cause of all of this! I swear I am_ never _forgiving the adults that have treated me so badly…_

The adults themselves could be split into three groups: one that ignored me – which I didn't mind, one that feared me – which I found hilarious, and one that hated me. Needless to say, I hated the third group the most. Unfortunately for me, most of the orphanage workers fit into the third category.

Eventually, I just couldn't stand living in the orphanage any more. The Hokage had a habit of visiting every few months on the pretence of making sure that the orphanage wasn't understaffed and underequipped, but I knew that he really visited just to check up on me. It was on one of these days that I approached him when he was about to leave the orphanage.

"Hokage-san," I called out softly, trying to act a bit more like a two-year-old would. He turned around and, upon recognizing me, smiled and bent down a little.

"Ah, Naruto. How are you?" he asked. I almost pitied him for the way he tried to be overly kind. When he came to visit the orphanages I usually behaved like any other child in front of him, so he no doubt regretted the fact that he couldn't get closer to me because of my politeness.

"I'm fine. Well… not really…" I looked down and sighed deeply, putting on a face of dissatisfaction.

"Oh? What's wrong?" he asked, genuinely looking concerned.

"Well… the truth is that… I don't feel comfortable living here…"

He frowned and straightened a little. "What do you mean? Are you not being treated well?"

I shook my head. "I think it would be better if I lived by myself," I suggested. The Hokage's eyes widened a fraction before returning to their usual size.

"Naruto, wait here for me a bit. I'll come back after talking with the orphanage workers." He swiftly made his way back into the orphanage, and I couldn't help smirking in satisfaction.

After waiting for a few minutes, I saw Hiruzen walking back to me, unable to hide the slight frown on his face. "Naruto, I've had a talk with the workers, and we've come to an agreement. Once your third birthday arrives, you will be free to leave the orphanage, and I will prepare a house for you to live in. Until then, you are going to have to remain in the orphanage. Is that okay?"

I was slightly disappointed, but it seemed this was the best I could hope for. "Yes, and thank you, Hokage-san."

His face relaxed and he bade me goodbye before leaving the orphanage.

…

It was a few weeks later that I finally felt that my chakra reserves were large enough for me to try out a jutsu for the first time. Waiting until the sky was inky-black and the orphanage had fallen into complete silence I snuck out to the garden, careful to avoid making loud noises. I knew that there was a chance that I was being watched by ninja like ANBU or Root members, but there was nothing I could do about that.

Breathing deeply to calm myself, I formed the traditional clone seal by crossing my right index and middle fingers with my left index and middle fingers to form a plus sign. Immediately, I felt the chakra inside me rumble and begin to spin around my body, and I could tell that the next step would be to guide the chakra out of my body to form a clone. I wasn't sure exactly how to complete this next step, but the chakra began exiting my body naturally as soon as I thought about it.

 _No way… is it really this easy?_

As soon as this thought ran through my mind my concentration was broken, and the chakra that had been leaving my body quickly retreated back in via my abdomen.

 _Great… turns out it isn't that easy…_

As I quickly found out, using the jutsu required a high level of concentration. Every time I began directing the chakra out of my body, my focus would shatter and the chakra would rush back to my body. However, this wasn't the only problem – as I began getting closer and closer to performing the jutsu, the Kyuubi's Bijuu chakra inside me also began interrupting the process. I could tell that it wasn't intentional – it was just that the Bijuu chakra was more potent than normal chakra, so the imbalance in chakra potency would break my concentration.

To cope with this, I began altering the amount of chakra I let out. Whenever I detected Bijuu chakra exiting my body, I would recall some of my own chakra to create the correct chakra potency. It took a while, but soon I was able to keep the chakra out of my body long enough to transform its shape.

Then came the next hurdle. As I placed my focus on changing the shape of the chakra, some of it would leak back into my body, ruining its shape and my concentration yet again.

 _This is turning out to be incredibly hard…_

In the end, I wasn't able to complete it that night, so I repeated the process several times. It took me almost two weeks to finally use the technique for the first time, and an additional week to consistently use it. At first I limited myself to one clone, but I soon became comfortable with making several clones. After I was confident enough that the clones would last at least an hour unattended, I began ordering the clones to sneak out of the orphanage and familiarize themselves with the town – after all, I had still not even glimpsed anything past the street the orphanage was on.

The next jutsu I worked on was the Rasengan. Now, I know that this jutsu was far too high-level for me to start learning this early, but honestly, it was the only jutsu I knew that didn't use hand seals. I knew the different steps required to learn it, so I began attempting to learn this technique.

…

Eventually my third birthday arrived, and the Hokage came to escort me to my house. It was located near the outskirts of the village and was in bad condition, but I didn't really mind. Once we got there the Hokage showed me around for a bit before getting up to leave.

"I'm going to have to leave you now, Naruto, for I am a very busy man. If you ever need me, just pop into my office, okay?"

"Hokage-san, wait a second please," I called out, and he turned around without delay. "Um… if you don't mind… can you please teach me one easy jutsu?"

"You want to learn a jutsu?" he asked before smiling softly, amusement visible in his eyes. "Why don't we wait until you're a little older, okay?"

I shook my head. "But I _need_ this jutsu! Otherwise, I'll find it hard to _live_!" I insisted.

He frowned. "And what on earth is this jutsu that's so vital to your survival?" he asked, evidently surprised at my insistence.

"I need to learn the Henge jutsu to change the way I look – if I don't, I just know that I won't be treated well. I mean, I wasn't treated well in the orphanage…"

After a few moments of silence he relented, sighing and nodding. "Fine, I'll show you the jutsu and write down the details in a scroll. Is that enough?"

So he proceeded to show me the jutsu and hand over a scroll about the jutsu. After thanking him and seeing him off, I immediately began learning the Henge jutsu. Using a large number of shadow clones, I was able to learn the jutsu in a few hours, and I instantly put it to use when I went out to shop for furniture - the Hokage had given me a decent amount of money to start off with and told me that he would send money every month.

Returning home at night, I crashed onto my bed and fell asleep instantly.

…

The next day I got up early, since I had a ton of things that I wanted to do. The entire time I got ready, I had one thought constantly buzz through my head.

 _From now on, everything will be different to the Naruto plot…_

The first thing that I did was make my way to the Uchiha Clan complex. The land that the Uchiha owned was vast, almost comparable to a third of the village, but there was one entry point that was well-known, so I made my way there, taking several scrolls I had borrowed from the library the previous day with me. I then used Henge to transform into a black-haired kid and sat down near the entrance, close enough to see it clearly but far enough so that it wasn't too suspicious, and pretended to read. It took a while, but after several hours I spotted a young Shisui leaving the Uchiha complex. I immediately followed him, making no attempt to hide myself. He didn't react in any way, but I was sure that he had spotted me.

The path he took led us further out of the village until we could see the city walls. It was in an alley near the walls that he finally confronted me, a hand on the handle of the tanto on his back and his Sharingan eyes spinning madly.

"I refuse to believe that you're just a normal kid who wants to see me use jutsu – my eyes can see through your Henge. What do you want?" he asked, his voice steely but not aggressive.

I quickly dispelled the Henge and raised my hands to show that I wasn't equipped, and he dropped his arm in response – although he didn't deactivate his Sharingan.

"As expected, Shisui Uchiha. I'm Naruto, the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki," I introduced myself.

He nodded as he recognized me. "How can I help you, Naruto?"

I sighed deeply.

 _This is going to be one hell of a confession._

"Can we talk somewhere more private? Or maybe you could cast a genjutsu around us with your Sharingan to ensure no one detects us?"

He raised an eyebrow at the peculiar request, but nevertheless fulfilled and stared at me expectantly.

"Alright. What I'm about to tell you next will be unbelievable at first, but I can assure you that I am telling the truth, and I'm willing to prove it to you as well…"

So then I proceeded to explain to him the details of my reincarnation. Now, before you get any ideas, I didn't just tell him this because I felt like it. I had specifically planned to inform Shisui first for several reasons: he was strong enough to protect this secret; he didn't have such an important position that I couldn't approach him easily; and I could trust him.

While I spoke to him, I watched his face to see any sign of hostility but, barring a slight widening of the eyes, he didn't show any reaction to what I said at all.

"So how are you going to prove all of this?" he asked me.

I thought carefully. I needed to give him a piece of information that I had no right knowing, and that was somehow linked to him. Eventally, I settled on something, although I wasn't completely sure of its reliability.

"… I know about what the Uchiha Clan is planning," I said. He narrowed his eyes ever so slightly and leaned forwards but remained silent, so I took this as a sign to continue. I mouthed the next part. "Rebellion."

After a few seconds of dead silence, he took a deep breath and rocked back on the balls of his feet. "I… can't believe it…"

"I can even tell you who would have killed you."

His face shot up and his Sharingan eyes spun madly. "Who?" he almost whispered intensely.

"Danzo."

Again, this caused him to lapse into silence. I let him debate with himself for a while, and after a few minutes he finally looked up again.

"… Why are you telling me all this?" he asked.

"Because I need at least one person to know the truth, and I know I can trust you."

He smirked ever so slightly and deactivated his Sharingan. "Naruto… I'm going to have to leave now, but don't be afraid to simply inform the Uchiha guards that you want to see me, got it?"

"Sure. Also, you can tell Itachi everything I told you, but no one else – not even the Hokage."

He nodded and shook my hand. "I'll see you tomorrow then, Naruto," he said before leaving.

 _First task of the day done…_

Next, I visited the library (using a Henge transformation) and borrowed a ton of scrolls on various ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu and basically anything useful to a ninja. I took these scrolls home and copied them all onto my own scrolls (of which I had bought a huge number) using shadow clones. Then I got some shadow clones to work on these various jutsu. As for myself? I pulled out some scrolls and began working on fuinjutsu.

The reason why I began working on fuinjutsu was because I had several ideas and theories regarding it which I wanted to test out – namely, if fuinjutsu was only performable when using Japanese kanji in addition to strange symbols and markings.

You see, back in my old world, I had been studying English in order to migrate to the USA to find a job there. Now, with this partial knowledge of the English language, I wanted to try making seals. So first, I got a blank piece of paper and wrote 'bag' on it in English. I poured a little chakra into it, and I could suddenly feel a strange sensation arising from the seal, as if I was sticking my hand down a hole when I touched the seal.

Experimentally, I placed an apple against the seal and poured my chakra into both the seal and the apple, causing the apple to simply vanish. When I poured chakra into the seal it was as if I was grasping the apple, so I could tell the apple was inside the seal. Pouring more chakra into the seal in the direction of the apple caused the apple to exit the seal, appearing in my hands.

 _I see, just as I thought… Japanese writing focuses heavily on handwriting neatness, and a single incorrect stroke can completely ruin the meaning of the character being written… on the other hand, English is far more accepting of messy handwriting, so I don't need to go through the months of handwriting training to make my own seal…_

I then attempted the same thing but in Japanese, and this time it didn't work.

 _As I thought, handwriting is vital for fuinjutsu…_

So I spent the rest of the day testing out various theories on fuinjutsu. In the end, I came to a final conclusion on what fuinjutsu really entailed.

 _Simply put, fuinjutsu is the same as ninjutsu, just expressed differently. To perform a jutsu, manipulation of chakra_ and _intention is needed. The manipulation of chakra is done using hand seals in ninjutsu and through writing and drawing marks for fuinjutsu. The intention or purpose always stems from the person performing the jutsu._

 _Using that logic, if one has extremely good chakra control, one can miss out the 'manipulation of chakra' step, since that person already has a high ability to control chakra. I guess that would explain how with enough training you can reduce the hand seals needed to perform ninjutsu…_

However, it wasn't all smooth sailing. When I tried to make a more complicated seal, I found that I needed to be clearer with my words and I usually had to write more. For other seals which I had a vague idea how they would work but nothing concrete, nothing would work – I guess that was down to me lacking a clear intention on what I wanted to happen.

Finally, I found that for seals which used elemental chakra, I couldn't make them at all, which was probably down to the fact that I couldn't make elemental chakra.

Nevertheless, I was very happy with my results, so I called it quits after a while and went to sleep.

…

The next few weeks passed by in a blur. After Shisui informed Itachi all about me we began to meet up in the Forest of Death, where they would help me train and I would tell them a bit more about the future and potential opponents. I also spent time learning the Rasengan and various other techniques I had obtained from the library, although none of them had the destructive power of the Rasengan.

Now, I had already explained why I told Shisui about my reincarnation. However, the truth of the matter was that the biggest factor which helped me decide to tell Shisui was his Kotoamatsukami genjutsu given by his Mangekyo Sharingan, and what I would do with it. This also had something to do with why I told Itachi about me secret as well.

You see, although I'm not exactly wired to the Konoha radio, Shisui and Itachi have been able to provide me with rumours and information, and I've found out that Kumogakure would be sending an envoy to Konoha in an attempt to end the Third Shinobi World War which was taking place. Naturally, I knew that this was a front to obtain the Hyuuga's Byakugan, so I quickly formed a plan based on Shisui's eye and Itachi. When the envoy was a few days away from arriving, I began executing the plan.

First, I would get Shisui to use his genjutsu on Danzo. This took a huge amount of convincing though, as Shisui hadn't wanted to use up the genjutsu – which could only be cast every 10 years – in one eye. Nevertheless, he didn't eventually concede to my plan, and proceeded to hunt Danzo down and implant false memories which implied that I had saved Danzo's life multiple times and that I was actually an adult sealed in a child's body.

I wasn't completely sure of how well this would work, but I was delighted when the very same day, as I was preparing to sleep, I found Danzo knocking on my door.

"… Danzo-san? How can I help you?"

He shook his head ever so slightly. "Please, just Danzo. I don't deserve your respect, sensei."

It took all of my willpower not to gape. "I-if you say so…"

"So, any new orders? I assume that's why you sent a messenger to get me," he expanded.

"Yeah… mainly, keep doing everything you are, keep my existence a secret, stop trying to harm Hiruzen, and assign Itachi to protect Hiashi's daughter on the day the peace treaty will be signed. Also, I'll need you for some other stuff later, so how can I get in touch with you quickly?"

"I will inform Itachi of my whereabouts so that he can relay messages. Now, in case you have anything else to say sensei, I will have to depart."

 _…_ _That… was the weirdest experience ever… Danzo calling me sensei…_

On the day when the Hyuuga affair was to take place, ironically, I could do nothing but stay at home, while Itachi was protecting Hinata and Shisui was working for the village. Needless to say, I was too stressed and nervous that day to train properly, so I went out for a walk instead.

…

The next day, after meeting up with Shisui as usual, he I discovered that my plan had been a success – Itachi had stopped Hiashi from killing the Kumo ninja that had snuck into the house to abduct Hinata. Instead, the ninja had been captured and sent back to Kumo, who denied accusations that the peace treaty had simply been a cover for obtaining the Hyuuga heir. To back up this claim they eventually signed the peace treaty, and Konoha was confident that the Third Shinobi World War would soon come to an end.

 _I mean, I never doubted my plan in the first place…_

…

It wasn't something obvious, but gradually, I began realizing that Itachi was daydreaming more often during our training. At first, I had no idea whatsoever could cause Itachi to stress over, but when I saw his contemplating look mixed with a strange reaction – that made him look guilty – I could only think of one answer: a girl.

The question was – which girl could cause Itachi's conscience to be so divided? So one day, with the excuse that I wanted to have a holiday for one day, I cancelled our training and got Shisui to stalk Itachi. _He_ went on to employ the help of one of his friends, who was a Hyuuga, and with his Byakugan the friend was able to determine who the very few people that Itachi interacted with were. Finding out their names was easy – a simple shadow clone using Henge convinced them to say their names – but at first their names were simply refusing to ring bells.

"What was your name again?"

"It's Izumi Uchiha… why?" the young brunette asked.

 _…_ _Izumi… Uchiha?_

It turned out that the shadow clone simply burst out of existence from the sheer shock, and the information rushed into my head.

 _Izumi Uchiha… I remember that name… but I didn't know it was a girl! Damn, I guess not even I could remember everything about Naruto. But I guess I understand now why Itachi was blanking out during training – as far as I can remember, she must be the girl that Itachi helped during the Kyuubi attack…_

At that point I had made up my mind to pair up Izumi and Itachi, or at the very least try. So when Itachi arrived later that day, I suggested something to him.

"Hey Itachi, I met this nice Uchiha called Izumi. Do you know her?"

His expression, if anything, seemed to harden a little. "Yes. Why?"

"I was thinking that she could join our training sessions."

"… Can she be trusted?" I may have been hearing things, but I was sure that I could detect hope in his voice.

"As far as I know, yes – although I won't reveal my secret to her yet just to be on the safe side."

It was safe to say that Itachi seemed to concentrate much better during the training after that. As we were about to leave I suggested to Itachi to get to know Izumi, and then I turned to Shisui.

"Your Mangekyo ability has a 10 year cool-down, right?"

He nodded, no longer finding it strange that I knew things like that.

"Well, you can reduce the cool-down time drastically by injecting Hashirama's cells into your body."

He stared at me. "… And where exactly am I supposed to get the cells of a deceased person?"

"Danzo. It's your choice, but if you choose to do it just tell him what I told you."

He nodded, slightly dazed in shock, and we walked out of the forest.

…

In the end, I decided to go with Shisui to Danzo. Shisui got the Hashirama cells injected into his body, and I convinced Danzo to give me one of his Sharingan, which was implanted into my eye.

You see, I always believed that Danzo had obtained all of the Sharingan in his arm from the Uchiha Clan Massacre. Turns out that I was wrong – Orochimaru had implanted it into his body a long time ago, which explained why Danzo wore bandages over his arm even before the Uchiha Clan Massacre. The arm apparently used to be owned by one of Orochimaru's test subjects, called Shin, but eventually Orochimaru simply ripped it out of Shin and implanted it into Danzo.

So anyway, Shisui began getting Hashirama cells injected into him and I got a three-tomoe Sharingan implanted into my left eyeball. The Sharingan, as I quickly found, was extremely useful – watching someone doing a jutsu a single time allowed me to memorize the hand seals needed and have the chakra fluctuations for that jutsu imprinted into my mind, allowing me to perform the jutsu rapidly.

Itachi questioned me as to where Danzo had obtained his Sharingan, but he quietened down when I explained to him the story of Shin.

 _It may have helped that Izumi had chosen to arrive in that precise moment…_

As I quickly found out, Itachi really did have feelings for Izumi, although they weren't strong enough to qualify it as love. Seeing this, Shisui took every chance to tease Itachi, and Izumi jumping in to his defence only made it worse for him.

So the first time Izumi had joined us, while Itachi was enduring Shisui's teasin, she approached me slowly and asked me a few questions.

"You're… Naruto, right?" I nodded. "How come you're training so hard even though you're a kid?"

I resisted the urge to smirk at the last part. "I know many things you don't, and I know the future is a very unpleasant place, so I'm preparing for it."

She raised her eyebrows. "You're quite intelligent for a kid," she stated.

This time, I resisted the urge to grind my teeth together. "Well, knowledge is power."

"And power corrupts," she said with a small smile.

"… Really? Well then, answer this: if you had the chance to save a dying relative, but you needed to accept power that would corrupt you, would you do it?"

She thought for a while, eventually shrugging and shaking her head. "It depends. Besides, I'd have to actually be in that situation for me to be able to make a choice."

"… Trust me; if there ever came a time when you were in that situation, you wouldn't be able to make the choice. Being a ninja means you must learn what to sacrifice to gain something else. It's not all fun and games."

I doubt she ever saw me as a 'kid' after that.


	2. Academy

I don't own Naruto.

 **Academy**

Power. That was what I desired. Therefore, I had set my sights on the Rinnegan. As far as I knew, I could awaken the Rinnegan in my body by absorbing some of Sasuke's chakra, or by stealing the Rinnegan of someone like Nagato. Of course, the latter is not an option right now, so I proceeded to order Danzo to get some of Sasuke's cells.

I must stress that I only gained Itachi's permission to do this after I promised him countless times that Sasuke wouldn't be harmed, and even then he only relented on the condition that he would obtain Sasuke's cells himself, and while Sasuke was asleep.

It didn't take long, and I was soon lying down in an operating room, getting the cells injected into my right shoulder. When the operation was done I rushed to a toilet and gazed into the mirror but, unsurprisingly, there was nothing strange about my eyes.

 _Well, it did take Madara his whole life to awaken the Rinnegan…_

So I put the Rinnegan out of my head and concentrated on the next thing on my mind – Itachi's Mangekyo eyes, which he had awakened on a mission where they had been attacked by a masked man, who had killed one of Itachi's teammates.

 _That masked man… was it Obito?_

…

The next few years passed by slowly, what with my movements being restricted to inside Konoha, and all I could do was train. I mean, I know fights are dangerous and all, but I quickly caught the illness known as boredom. There were a few moments of respite – Izumi was promoted to genin and Itachi eventually joined ANBU – but there wasn't much that I personally could do.

However, it was after my seventh birthday that everything kicked off, and for the first time I was truly dragged into ninja politics and shown just how dark it could get.

…

It was just an ordinary day, and I was just practicing some fuinjutsu in my house, when I heard a knock on my door, so I went down to open it. Finding Itachi and Shisui waiting in front of me, I quickly moved aside to allow them in.

"What's wrong?"

"Can't we just visit you when we miss you?" Shisui smiled.

I rolled my eyes and looked at Itachi. "Well? If it required you to see me, I can guess this is an important topic."

He nodded. "The Uchiha Clan-"

"Oh." That was all it took for me to understand. "Has Danzo made the suggestion to kill them all?"

Shisui shook his head. "Not yet, but it feels like he's going down that track."

"Are there any other solutions to this issue?" Itachi asked.

I sighed. "The problem is, this issue dates back to the founding of the village – completely solving this issue is virtually impossible."

Itachi frowned. "Are you saying there's no way to solve this other than killing them?"

"No – we could keep them all under a genjutsu like Shisui's Kotoamatsukami, or we could pacify them by promising them that an Uchiha – specifically one of you two – will become Hokage, but in my opinion, these are only temporary solutions."

"Well then _are_ there any permanent solutions?" Shisui asked.

I resisted the urge to shake my head simply to have nothing to do with the Uchiha problem. "Honestly, I've considered many ideas, but the only way that I truly believe you can avoid a rebellion is by killing the rebels."

The two went quiet for a bit as they thought about what this would entail. "So… do you know exactly who is involved in the coup d'etat?" Shisui asked. "Because, from what I've seen, most of the ninja in the Uchiha Clan are already hostile towards Konoha…"

I nodded at what he was suggesting. "I don't know the details, but I know that a large number of Uchiha were involved in the coup d'etat."

Shisui sighed and leaned back for a while, before turning to Itachi. "What do you think?"

He closed his eyes and leaned back a little. "I'll do whatever it takes to keep the peace in Konoha."

"Even if it means killing your family?"

He gritted his teeth ever so slightly but nodded. "If there is no better option."

 _Let's see just how devoted to the village he is…_

"Even… even if it means killing Sasuke?" I asked.

He shot up and stared straight at me. "Are you serious? Is Sasuke really a threat?"

I nodded, and his face fell rapidly. "It's not _that_ bad."

"What do you mean?" His face, which had previously portrayed his deep distress quite easily, just as plainly showed the hope in his brother.

"In the first place, Sasuke only became evil because of a mad rush for power, which _you_ were the one to instigate, since you would have went on to kill every Uchiha barring him."

Itachi nodded at what I was implying, but Shisui frowned. "Wait, so did he kill me?"

"No; you had already committed suicide to stop Danzo from obtaining your eyes."

Shisui nodded in relief, before Itachi sighed, a little frustrated. "Let's get back on topic. Is there nothing we can do other than kill them?"

I groaned slightly as I wracked my brain. "Really, the only solution I can come up with is if you trap each Uchiha member in a genjutsu and kill them if you find that they are part of the coup d'etat, while leaving the others alive."

Itachi thought about this for a while. "The problem is that I'm not sure I can do that quickly enough – as in, I don't have enough chakra to continually use it."

"The chakra part is not a problem – I'm sure there's other ways around that," Shisui commented. "The problem lies in the fact that such repeated and intense use of your Mangekyo would cause you to go blind."

Itachi widened his eyes in shock, but I quickly butted in. "Actually, there's a way you can get past that, although I'm not sure you'd like it."

I then proceeded to explain how he could acquire the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan by taking the eyes of his father, who already had the Mangekyo Sharingan. He looked quite disturbed, despite understanding that it would be for the better.

After a while the two finally left to the council, with a slight idea of what to do with the Uchiha issue.

…

I virtually lost all contact with the two Uchiha after that meeting for almost half a year – in fact, even Izumi could barely make it to train with me anymore. I had no doubt that the Hokage had begun to take action against the Uchiha, probably using my idea as his basis. Surprisingly, virtually no unrest from the Uchiha could be detected – at least, not more that there already was – so I assumed that they were dealing with it smoothly.

It was around 6 months later that I finally met Shisui and Itachi again, and they immediately began filling me in on what had happened. Apparently, they had decided to interrogate each individual Uchiha starting with Fugaku, Itachi's father, using Itachi's Tsukuyomi. I was a little shocked when they told me that Fugaku willingly gave his eyes to Itachi and killed himself in exchange for Mikoto's and Sasuke's lives.

"It was… noble of him…" Itachi murmured. I shot a look at Shisui, who pulled me to the side later on while Izumi and Itachi were training.

"He… when his father died… he cried," Shisui admitted. "… And I've never seen him cry, so I'm not sure…"

"… That you did a good job in comforting him?" I finished, and he nodded a little guiltily. "Don't worry; I'll see what I can do."

He smiled at me gratefully before returning to the other two.

Later, as we began to leave, I called Itachi back and waited for the others to leave.

"So," I began, "did you get his eyes?"

He didn't respond, choosing to look me in the eye and activate his new eyes. Put simply, it was his old Mangekyo design overlapped onto Fugaku's Mangekyo design.

"… I heard he offered it to you."

He nodded again.

"And I heard that he willingly killed himself."

He nodded again, this time a little slower.

"Why?"

After a few seconds of silence, his shoulders sagged and he turned his face away. "He… he was opposed to the rebellion in the first place…" Itachi whispered.

"… Then… surely…?"

"No." He paused for a bit, and I think his breathing quickened a little. "He said… he said that he should be the one to shoulder the majority of the hatred… that it was his responsibility as the clan head to control the clan…"

"… And that he failed…" I finished.

Itachi nodded, jerking his head ever so slightly but quickly. "He said that… that Konoha had made the right choice in killing the rebels-"

"-But you don't agree." He remained silent, not denying my claim.

 _Ah, I see. That's where the problem lies._

"Itachi, let me ask you a question. Can you define to me what is right and wrong?"

He opened his mouth and began to answer, but quickly shook his head. "No. Right and wrong is a matter of perspective."

"Now tell me, Itachi, do you love your father?"

He nodded vigorously. "Of course."

"Do you wish the best for him?" He began to nod, but I asked him another question. "Or do you wish for him to choose the best for him?"

"… The second."

"And that shows that you truly love your father. Now, just as you love him, learn to accept him and his choices, no matter if you disagree. He is free to choose what to believe and how to act, and you are free to oppose him. However, if you truly love him, then accepting the differences is the only way."

Slowly, he slid down to the ground, leaning against a tree and looking towards Konoha with glistening eyes. Even though he didn't say anything else, I could sense what he was thinking.

' _But… it's hard…'_

I was hardly surprised to see Shisui walking towards us. I turned to Itachi and gestured towards Shisui's figure, which was outlined by the setting sun. "But you're not alone. You've got others who feel what you feel, and on top of that they care about you. Now go confide in him – after all, that's what friends are for."

He stood up and gave me a long look, finally choosing to shake my hand. "… Thank you, Naruto."

I turned the handshake into a hug. "Anytime."

The touching scene was ruined by Shisui calling out, "Hey Itachi, it's not polite to make a girl wait you know!"

As we walked back to Konoha, something ticked in the back of my head.

 _Wait… a girl!?_

Itachi seemingly realized the same time I did and raised an eyebrow at Shisui. "So… finally admitting your true gender, huh?" I couldn't hold back a wry smile from appearing.

Shisui's eyes widened comically. "What!? No! Izumi's waiting for us, you creep!"

"… How am I the creep if you're the one who suggested it?"

"Don't be ridiculous!"

"Look at yourself first… oh wait, you must do a lot of that already."

"Itachi, you brat! Just wait until the next training session… because you're dead!"

 _Yeah, it seems like Izumi's cheerful personality is finally having an effect on these two…_

Needless to say, I remained quite entertained as we returned home.

…

What with the Uchiha clan crisis being averted and no plausible dangers approaching, I finally felt that it was time to join the ninja academy.

The ninja academy offered three main courses: a six-year course to start at the age of six, a three-year course to start at the age of nine, and a year-long course to start at the age of eleven. The point of having different courses was to allow for special circumstances – for example, a clan heir would probably take the year-long course since they would be able to train better with their clans, and an average citizen child would take the three-year course to cover information that clans cover for their own children. The six-year course is either for orphans or for citizens who wish to take the ninja life seriously.

At any rate, I chose the three-year course to be able to get to know the various class members better.

So at the tender age of nine, after having a short discussion with the Hokage on why I should be a ninja, I joined the ninja academy.

As I walked to the academy on the first day, I realized that the hatred towards me had mellowed a little, probably because I had stayed out of sight for most of my life so they didn't have to worry much.

Soon, I reached the ninja academy and was directed to the correct room by a chunin who kept glancing at me out of the corner of his eyes, as if he was afraid that I would suddenly attack him.

 _Let's mess around with him a little…_

Pretending to trip over, I stumbled into his back a little faster that I had planned, and he responded by whipping his head around while jumping away from me with a quiet scream.

"Ah, sorry! I just tripped over, sorry!"

Honestly, his panicked face as he had turned around was worth it.

Finally, we reached our classroom and he rapidly walked away, leaving me staring at the door to the large room

 _Well, I'm not late…_

So I pushed the door open and walked inside.

"… Why are you wearing a face mask?"

The culprit was a young civilian boy.

"Because my eye was injured when I was a kid." Of course, the real reason I wore the face mask was to hide the Sharingan in my left eye.

He nodded and turned back to his friend.

… _Well, that was an exciting start to the day!_

Looking around, I spotted virtually no kids dressed like they came from ninja clans, and certainly no one I knew was there. Sighing, I made my way to a seat on the back row and slid into a chair.

A short while later Iruka finally entered the classroom and ordered everyone to calm down. As he called out the register, I let my mind wander for a while.

 _Surprisingly, only the Ino-Shika-Cho combo kids entered from the ninja population… all the rest, Sakura included, are civilians. So does that mean that I'm going to be pretty much bored to death in this class until the last year of the course?_

The rest of the day was quite boring, and I rejoiced when it was time to leave. Rushing up to Shikamaru, I called out his name, causing him to turn around.

"I heard that you're amazing at Shogi. Can I play you?"

He raised his eyebrows, but I could detect a small smirk emerging. "Don't cry when you lose," he yawned, and we made our way to a table, where he brought a full shogi set out of his bag.

 _I know the basics of Shogi thanks to my father, so I'm hoping to last for a decent while…_

It was over in a minute. A _single_ minute.

"Well, you're pretty good for a kid, but you're nowhere near my level," Shikamaru said nonchalantly as he got up lazily. Glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, he added, "But don't worry – it won't take too much practice for you to actually be pretty good."

"Wait, if you don't mind… can you train me please?"

He looked at me, then looked at his seat, then sighed. "Aah, it's too much effort. Just get a professional trainer or something."

"But I want to learn from _you_!"

He looked at me weirdly. "… Why?"

"Because I'm sure that you're a better teacher than I'll ever get. So please, train me, even if it's just for half an hour."

My outburst caused him to blush slightly and look away, scratching his head. "Eeh… fine, whatever. But you owe me for this!"

I beamed at him. "Of course!"

The next day I cornered him in a similar fashion and dragged him off to play shogi. While he tutored me, we talked about a few stuff.

"So why do you want to be a ninja? I mean, surely you would do just as well being a teacher?"

He smirked a little proudly but shook his head. "I come from a ninja clan – I'm pretty much _expected_ to become a ninja. Anything else would probably disappoint my father."

"Are you okay with that?"

"Well… I don't really mind, as long as I don't have to do too much work." After a little pause, he asked me, "What about you? Why do _you_ want to be a ninja?"

I looked down. "Because… I'm weak. I'm weak, and strong people are after me. I need to protect myself. But in addition, I need to protect anyone who happens to get involved with me. To do all that, I _need_ to get stronger, and the only way is by becoming a ninja."

When I was done, I found Shikamaru staring at me, mouth wide open. "What?" I asked.

"It's nothing," he said quickly, shaking his head slightly. "It's just… you don't act like a kid."

…

After I had dragged Shikamaru to play shogi multiple times, I soon began attracting the attention of Choji, who soon joined us simply to see what we were doing. Although he was content to simply sit on the side, eat chips and watch us play, occasionally he'd request a match and would be tutored by Shikamaru.

Then came Ino and Sakura. I guess I can understand why Ino came – Shikamaru and Choji were undoubtedly childhood friends – and I presume Sakura must have simply tagged along. Both proved to be quite good at shogi, with Sakura giving me quite a hard time, but again they were both content simply chatting nearby.

I guess I underestimated the popularity of the girls because soon, virtually all of our class was hanging out in the school yard for an hour after school, some playing shogi, some playing tag, and some simply gossiping.

What made it even funnier was that academy instructors encouraged this gathering, and soon began despatching genin to watch over us, despite it being after school time.

Another surprising thing was that I got barely any hate. It must have been due to the fact that I rarely walked around Konoha, meaning I was rarely on the citizens' minds (and therefore they didn't mention me much in front of their children), but rarely did children try to harass me, and even when they did it was limited to a few spoken words. In fact, some of the kids even defended me!

 _I guess that just shows that a child's mind is uncorrupted and unbiased, allowing the child to make judgements based on their own experiences._

The rest of the year passed by similarly, with me learning next to nothing from the academy. Still, the reason why I joined in the first place was because I wanted to endear myself to the ninja in my generation, so I wasn't really complaining.

Gradually, as the kids in my class began getting bored of simply playing shogi, the gatherings turned into chakra control and physical training sessions, run by me (naturally). Many kids didn't take these sessions incredibly seriously, but the Ino-Shika-Cho trio and Sakura did, which was a pleasing sight.

…

"Hey Sakura," I called out one day as everyone was returning home, and she turned to me.

"Yes Naruto?" she asked. I proceeded to hand over a scroll, which she took with a confused look.

"… Introduction to Medical Ninjutsu?" she read out. "What's this?"

"Read it in your spare time. I'm sure that, with a bit of effort, you will excel at medical ninjutsu."

She gave me a long, hard look. "Are you serious? Do you really think I can excel in medical ninjutsu?" Her voice was slightly desperate.

"I know."

She gasped quietly and stared at the book in her hands. "Naruto… thank you!"

I could understand her excitement. Being close friends with several clan members – like Ino – who would undoubtedly go on to become great ninja backed by their clans, Sakura must have wondered several times if she would ever amount to anything.

I smirked. "Show me your thanks by becoming an amazing medic."

"Yes!" she cried out, waving as she walked off.

…

The second year was no different to the first year, so when the first day of the third year arrived I finally felt a little excited. Arriving at the academy quite early, I found Hinata, Sasuke and Shino already waiting inside the classroom. First, I went up to Sasuke.

"Sasuke, right?" I said, and he nodded as he turned to me. "I'm Naruto. Nice to meet you."

When I said my name he gasped. "Are you the one that's been training with my brother?"

"Yes, why?"

He gave me an envious but awe-struck look. "Itachi-nii said that you're strong, stronger than me."

I smirked. "Even so, nothing is stopping you from overtaking me, right? All you have to do is train really hard."

He kind of got a glint in his eye, so I left him to his training fantasies and approached Shino. "Hey, I'm Naruto. Can I know your name?"

"Shino."

"Nice to meet you, Shino." He nodded as a reply, and as I was walking away I spotted one of his kikaichu bugs crawling up the side of his face. Barely able to supress a shiver, I quickly made my way to Hinata.

When I neared her she looked up rapidly, and instantly I could tell that she was every bit as timid as she was in the anime.

"Hey, I'm Naruto. What's your name?"

"Umm… it's… Hinata…" she mumbled, casting her eyes down immediately.

I frowned. "Speak up! And look at me when you talk to me!" I ordered.

She gasped and her head shot up in surprise, and she began blushing as she realized why I had said that.

"You understand, don't you? Now listen carefully, Hinata. Sparring is important. Pain builds character. Hurting someone during training is _good_. It shows that you want them to develop their defence and strength. It shows that you are taking your training, and therefore your ninja life, entirely seriously, resulting in others taking _you_ seriously."

She stared at me, mouth agape and shock etched into her face.

"When you walk, carry yourself with dignity – after all, you are training to become a ninja, the most dangerous and honourable job there is. Move with purpose. Talk with confidence."

I waited for her to take in all that I had said. "Do you understand?"

"Y-yes, Naruto-kun," she said meekly.

"My name is Naruto, not Naruto- _kun_. Also, it's nice to meet you, Hinata."

I left the stunned Hinata and returned to my seat. As the various students filtered in, I took it upon myself to greet the pupils from clans. I didn't do this in order to be friendly – no, I did this because I hoped to endear myself to them, and hoped that in the future they would prove to be powerful allies.

At any rate, the rest of the school year was a little better than my previous two years thanks to the new arrivals. Kiba never failed to provide amusement in the form of pranks, and Sasuke would take it upon himself to challenge me to try and prove to himself that Itachi was wrong about me being stronger than him. Although it wasn't too hard to beat him, I did relish the excitement of a fight.

…

"Naruto, I challenge you to a fight! Do you dare accept?" Sasuke's arrogant tone of voice, coupled with his confident stance, made me want to burst out laughing, but I restrained my amusement and nodded.

"Just out of interest, why do you want to battle?"

He grimaced slightly. "I want to see if you're really as strong as Itachi-nii says." I sighed.

 _I get the feeling that this is going to be a recurring incident…_

"Then come!"

He immediately obliged, rushing to me eagerly with a kunai in his hand. When he reached me he stabbed several times with his kunai, but I easily dodged his attacks and stepped inside his guard, striking his stomach with an open palm slightly enhanced with chakra. He was blasted back, but while in the air he managed to throw several kunai at me. I deflected them all and paused, waiting for him to regain his balance.

"That was pretty good, but you're too slow to take me on in pure taijutsu. Mix up your game."

He gritted his teeth and went through several hand seals. "Fire Release: Great Fireball jutsu!" As the large fireball made its way to me I rapidly leaped out of the way, but I soon came face to face with Sasuke, who threw two kunai at me. As I stepped in between them he crossed his hands over, revealing the strings the kunai were attached to and forcing the strings around my body.

"Fire Release: Dragon Fire jutsu!" He breathed some fire at the wires, which promptly combusted and the flames swiftly travelled down the wires towards me.

 _Oh? So he's not actually that bad…_

Using a drop of Kurama's chakra, I sent out a blast of chakra to get rid of the wires before charging to Sasuke.

 _Now it's my turn to attack!_

By the time I had reached him he was able to put up his guard, but I ducked rapidly and swept his legs from under him, making him drop. As he fell he attempted to flip back up but I placed my hand on his face and forced him to the ground. Before he could get up I brought a kunai to his neck and smiled grimly.

"Do you see now? I've been training far longer than you, so my base physical abilities are far better than yours."

He gritted his teeth angrily. "If that's the case, then how will I ever catch up to you in terms of time spent training!?"

"You can't, so don't try."

He growled. "But I must! I can't remain weaker than you!"

I sighed. "… If you're really that intent on beating me, then I recommend you look for a jonin called Might Guy. He might be able to help you."

"Might Guy…"

…

Sasuke ended up challenging me around once every month. Although I did beat him every single time, I noticed that his taijutsu had improved at a rapid pace, which was the effect of training with Guy and Rock Lee.

Nevertheless, he wasn't the only one to improve his taijutsu drastically.

It was on a day when I was training by myself that I finally discovered the key to unlocking the 8 celestial gates. As I sparred with several clones I let my mind wander, thinking about the various tenketsu points and how to force them open.

I already knew that simply forcing a large amount of chakra through my body was not enough, since the chakra flow was subconsciously limited, not enabling me to utilize enough chakra. I tried using Kurama's chakra to overcome this problem, but even then I couldn't maintain a large enough flow of chakra through my body.

 _All I know is that I need to undergo severe training to unlock the gates - I guess that means that the body itself provides enough chakra to unlock the gates when the time is right… but then why isn't it possible to unlock the gates manually? Is it because my body simply isn't durable enough, so the chakra flow is automatically limited?_

 _Or maybe the mind feels threatened when undergoing severe training so it forces more chakra through the body to cope with the additional stress from the training? If that's the case, then I could probably unlock the gates by putting myself in a dangerous situation where my mind acknowledges that the physical stress is too great for me to handle…_

All of that was well and good, but when I actually tried putting myself in a dangerous situation either I found that it wasn't dangerous enough or I didn't have the guts to do it.

Eventually, I decided to head to the rocky cliffs near the Hokage monuments, using chakra to walk up to a reasonably high distance.

 _I can't believe I'm doing this… just because this worked for Naruto when he summoned Gamabunta, doesn't mean it will work for me! … Wait a second; I_ am _Naruto, so maybe…_

Nonetheless, I was shivering from fear when I finally forced myself to jump off the wall. Restraining the urge to scream as I dropped to the ground, I quickly brought out a kunai and threw it at the cliff below me, causing it to lodge into the rock.

 _Now comes the hard part!_

Honestly, my heart was about to burst from the rate at which it was beating, and several times I caught myself about to panic, so you can guess just how terrified I was when I reached out for the kunai. As I passed by it in my free fall I grabbed the kunai, but it was nowhere near enough to halt my drop so I began tearing through the cliff in an attempt to stop myself.

 _I've overdone it now! Shit!_

I guess me swearing in my mind was proof of how terrified I really was, so when the word ran through my mind I felt a rushing sensation pass through my whole body.

 _Whoa… this…_

All of a sudden I gained a sense of clarity and strengthened my grip on the kunai, forcing it deeper into the rock. With the clarity came a sense of empowerment, as if I had been holding back my strength the entire time, and I used this newfound strength to quickly halt my drop before running along the wall to the ground.

 _I feel… so strong! So this is the first of the 8 gates, the Gate of Opening!_

I could also sense that I could open and close this gate consciously so I immediately imagined the gate closing, causing it to limit the flow of chakra once again. As it closed the vigour that had just been coursing through my body vanished, being replaced by fatigue that caused me to stumble back home.

 _I'll leave that… for emergencies…_

…

The last fight I had with Sasuke before graduation from the academy was quite interesting. As the fight was reaching its climax he suddenly paused and blinked. When he opened them again they were red with the familiar tomoe pattern.

I gasped. "… How do you already have a Sharingan with two tomoe!?"

He smirked. "With this, the result of this match will be different!"

I scoffed. "Don't get that excited. Sure, you may be able to see my movements, but what use is that if your body can't keep up with me?"

Yet somehow, when I threw a punch at his face he was able to cleanly dodge the blow and slap my arm away, making me lose my balance for a moment. Although he wasn't able to land a hit on me, I was surprised to find that he would occasionally display enough speed to avoid some of my attacks.

…

… _Finally, it's graduation day!_

I was particularly restless as I entered the class room because I was ready to bid the academy goodbye – I mean, it had barely taught me anything I didn't know already. I wasn't the only one who couldn't wait however – most of the students were anxious to pass, and even Shino's kikaichu betrayed his eagerness by buzzing slightly louder than usual.

"Next – Naruto Uzumaki!" As my name was called out I made my way to the class room in which I would be examined. Inside I found Iruka and Mizuki waiting for me – Iruka with his expectant look and Mizuki with his slight smirk.

"Naruto, the test is to make as many clones as you can. Got it?" Iruka explained.

"Wait, can I ask a question?" He nodded, so I continued. "The test is to simply make as many clones as possible, so I could use a jutsu other than Bunshin, right?"

He scratched his head. "Well… if you know alternative jutsu, then feel free to display them…"

I guess he must have seen me smirk, because Iruka leaned forwards with an intent look.

"Shadow Clone jutsu!"

It was too easy. I ended up passing with the highest marks, not just in ninjutsu, but overall as well – although I couldn't beat Sakura in the written test. I was surprised when I was still put in a team with Sasuke and Sakura, however.

 _That just proves that the teams aren't based on test marks._

After finishing the tests for the day I left the academy and settled down on a bench near the Hokage's tower.

 _Hopefully, Mizuki is going to steal the forbidden scroll tonight…_

So I waited… for a _long_ time. Soon I just couldn't take it, so I left behind a clone and returned home.

The next day I was informed by my clone's memories that nothing had happened, and it was proved once again that this world was different from the anime.

 _Well, I guess it_ would _be unrealistic for a chunin to steal a forbidden scroll…_

I arrived at the academy quite quickly and settled down, waiting for Kakashi to meet the newly formed team 7. As I watched jonin arriving to lead away their own teams, I prepared to go to sleep – after all, I knew that Kakashi would take a long time to arrive. Just before I could rest, Sasuke approached me and tapped my back.

"… Why are you going to sleep _now_?" he asked.

"I'm pretty sure that our sensei will be arriving… late…" I slowly stopped speaking when I saw Kakashi walking into the class room, which wasn't even empty yet.

"Team 7?" he called out, and Sasuke, Sakura and I made our way to him.

… _He's not even late! What is this blasphemy!_

Also, as I walked up to him, I realized that something was off from his body language – firstly, he didn't have any dirty magazines with him, and secondly, he seemed to be taking this seriously, based on what I could tell from his upright stance.

"Meet me in training ground 7 in five minutes." With that he took off, leaving the three of us slightly stunned, although for different reasons.

And as the three of us hurried to the location, one thought was running through my mind.

… _What happened to him to make his voice sound so bitter?_


	3. Genin

I don't own Naruto.

 **Genin**

We arrived at the training ground quite quickly, where we found Kakashi standing near the entrance. The training ground itself consisted of a large clearing surrounded by a small wood.

"You may have already graduated from the academy, but that doesn't make you genin," Kakashi began.

 _I know where this is leading…_

"I'm going to make you go through my personal test, and I'll decide whether to allow you to become genin based on the results of this test."

Sakura raised her hand. "Then what will happen if we fail this test?" She sounded tentative and nervous, and Kakashi softened his eyes a little when he noticed this.

"Don't worry. All that will happen is that you'll be forced to go back to the academy, okay?" Kakashi said, smiling slightly the entire time. Sakura stared at him as if unsure whether to scream out loud at the injustice or take it in stride like the rest of us were.

"But- wha- I thought-" she stuttered.

Sasuke sighed and cut her off. "Sakura, stop worrying so much. All we need to is pass this exam, right? I mean, how hard can it be for the three best genin?"

 _I wouldn't be so sure about that…_

Kakashi seemed to have similar thoughts, but Sakura brightened up and nodded fiercely, clenching her fist in front of her. "You're right, Sasuke-kun! We can do this!"

I'm pretty sure that the smirk Kakashi proceeded to give was out of pity.

"You're task is simple – all you must do is retrieve these bells off me." He held up his hand, displaying the two bells in his palm. "Of course, there are only two bells. Whichever one of you isn't able to obtain a bell will be returned to the academy. Any questions? No? Begin!"

And just like that he wandered off into the forest, leaving all three of us stunned.

… _He's doing the test_ now _!? And why did_ he _wander off?_

"So…" Sakura broke the silence. "… What do we do?"

Sasuke frowned. "I'd say it's obvious, but I find it strange how he implied that team 7 will only have three members. As far as I know, only four-member teams are allowed in Konoha."

"Is… Is the four-member thing a rule?" Sakura asked.

Sasuke nodded. "I think so."

"Then… does that mean that he's powerful enough to change the rules?" Sakura suggested.

I shook my head. "No – he's only a jonin. There's no _way_ he can change the rules."

"Then why is he doing this test?" Sasuke asked.

"Well, think about what ninja are famous for…"

It took around a minute, but Sakura finally got it. "Ah! It's a bluff!"

"What makes you say that? What would he benefit out of teaching us to split apart, despite being a team?" Sasuke asked.

"Well… maybe he's just testing us… to see how strong our teamwork is! Yes, that must be it!"

 _Finally!_

Sasuke's eyes lit up as he caught on. "So we need to attack him together to beat the test, right?"

After a bit more discussion and planning we rushed through the forest to Kakashi, who was reading a book while waiting for us. Seeing us he shut the book and got up, but not before I read the name of the book.

' _Effects of the Third Shinobi World War'? He's not reading dirty magazines!? That isn't like Kakashi!_

"So you finally found me, huh? So, who's going to attack me first?" he called out. Sasuke smirked in response and charged at him, and I aided him with some of my clones. Meanwhile, Sakura and I quickly set up a trap nearby, planning to lead Kakashi to the trap.

Soon enough I could hear Kakashi retreating from the mass of clones and Sasuke, so I quickly hid in a nearby bush alongside Sakura.

 _Do I think this will work? Of course not! However, it's the thought that matters right now._

When Kakashi stepped in front of the bush his eyes twitched slightly and he jumped up, avoiding the wire which was pulled tight near the ground.

 _If he's going to avoid it…_

"… Then _I'll_ activate it!" Sakura cried out, kicking the wire and activating the trap. This caused several other wires, on the ends of which there were kunai, to shoot out at Kakashi and wrap around him, catching him by surprise.

 _Actually, it looks like his expression of shock is fake…_

Nevertheless, we continued with the plan. "Fire Release: Dragon Fire jutsu!" Sasuke called out, igniting the wire and causing the flames to speed towards Kakashi along the wires. Just before the flames reached him Kakashi seemingly disappeared and appeared on the ground after going through several hand seals, a shadow clone now where he originally was.

However, it wasn't over yet. Sakura immediately hurled several shuriken at Kakashi, and I augmented the speed of the shuriken using 'Wind Release: Gale Palm". Kakashi ended up dodging the shuriken, but they weren't too far off hitting him.

"Alright, this is enough," he said, gesturing for us to gather round him. "I already know that you've figured out the purpose of this activity, and you displayed excellent teamwork. However, I still don't think that you value teamwork enough, so let me show you something quickly. Come with me."

He led us outside the training ground to training ground 3, taking us to the memorial stone there. Once we got there, he pointed out Obito's name and looked at us.

"This name… was the name of my teammate… he died during the Third Shinobi World War…"

As he spoke I sensed something strange, as if we were being watched, so I slowly pulled my face mask down, taking care to cover the Sharingan in my left eye with my hand.

"… There was one phrase that my friend would never stop repeating to me, and it wasn't until he sacrificed himself for me did I truly understand the meaning of those words…"

I cautiously looked around, stopping when I spotted a vague figure far into the woods.

 _Who's that? He's not trying to attack us, but he's too far to be able to see us clearly unless he has a dojutsu…_

When I realized that the ninja was inching his way closer I squinted slightly, and when he was finally close enough for me to be able to make out what he was wearing I suppressed a gasp. I quickly readjusted my face mask and returned my focus to Kakashi, and when he was done speaking I rapidly made my way out of the training ground, all while thinking the same thing.

… _What was Obito Uchiha doing there!?_

…

Ever since that day I was constantly on guard, knowing that one of my greatest enemies was casually wandering around in Konoha. That led me to wonder exactly what he was doing in Konoha.

 _Well, I know that originally he had planned to recruit Itachi for the Akatsuki, but he can't do that now since Itachi isn't considered a criminal. He's almost definitely trying to recruit someone, however, since Akatsuki are short on members right now…_

And then I remembered that he had been hanging around near Kakashi.

 _Don't tell me… Kakashi!? … Wait, now that I think about it, it's entirely logical! Obito would know enough about Kakashi that he would be able to manipulate him, and Obito would benefit if he took his eye back from Kakashi!_

On that thought I decided to closely observe Kakashi while he trained us.

It must have somehow been the influence of Obito, but Kakashi earnestly drove us into training on our first day as genin. Sakura, with her amazing chakra control but slightly low chakra reserves, was ordered to constantly go over the water walking exercise, while Sasuke repeated the tree walking exercise. As for me, I convinced Kakashi that chakra control shouldn't be my focus due to my large reserves, so he settled for sparring with me and improving my reaction speed after I proved that I could do the tree walking exercise.

At the end of the first day, Sakura approached me with a scroll in her hand, opening it up to show me the name of the scroll – 'Introduction to Medical Ninjutsu'.

I raised an eyebrow. "Have you completely read and understood the scroll?"

She nodded, a small blush forming on her face. "Um… you were right when you said that I would find it easy."

I smiled. "That's because your chakra control is so refined."

She blushed a little more. "… Thanks. It means a lot to me, learning that I could become something as useful as a medic."

"… And why is that?"

She fidgeted and looked around shyly. "Well, I… I don't really like feeling left behind…"

I frowned. "And when do you feel as if you're being left behind?"

"Well… when I'm around Sasuke-kun and you… and Ino, Shikamaru and Choji… and-"

"-Okay, I get it. You feel left behind when you're around people with a ninja background, and your closest friend just so happens to have a ninja background."

She nodded, and her once embarrassed face slowly fell to reveal her sad interior.

 _Sakura… she really does take being a ninja seriously…_

I sighed. "Sakura, listen up. Do you know who the Fourth Hokage was?"

She glanced up at me with a small smile, as if stating, _'Do you_ really _think I don't know?'_

"Just say his name."

"… Minato Namikaze," she said.

"Yes. Now tell me, have you ever heard of the Namikaze clan?"

She frowned in concentration and tapped her chin for a while, before huffing and shaking her head. "I can't believe it, but I've _never_ heard of a clan with that name…"

I smirked. "That's because there _isn't_ a clan with that name. Minato was the child of civilian parents."

She nodded in understanding.

"… Just like you."

When I said this, she gasped and looked up at me. "You- what? Wait, what are you saying!?" she exclaimed, and although she sounded as if she was in panic, I could see her hopeful look.

I shrugged with a smirk. "All I'm saying is that your circumstances are strangely similar to Minato's circumstances."

She frantically shook her head. "But- you- you implied-"

My smirk grew. "Does it matter what I implied? All that matters is that you give your best, right? Who knows what the outcome will be."

I left her stuttering in shock as I walked home, but as I was about to leave the training ground she called out, "Just you wait, Naruto-san!"

… _Naruto-'san' now, huh?_

"I'll become a great medic, amaze the entire shinobi world, and become the first female Hokage!"

 _I'm not too sure about first female Hokage, but still…_

"… Well then, you'll have to make sure that Sasuke doesn't beat you to that post, right?"

She got so fired up that she began sounding like Rock Lee a little.

…

The first few weeks we spent mostly training and occasionally taking on D-rank missions. The missions were incredibly boring, requiring simple labour or something of the sort – our first mission was simply to help pull out weeds in a particularly large garden, and the next was to sort out files in the public library.

After confiding in me Sakura became visibly more motivated, and it was she who kept our spirits when we were forced to complete the dreadful missions. Kakashi undoubtedly noticed the difference in her personality but must have simply decided to keep quiet, and it took Sasuke a few days before he finally realized what had changed. As we were returning home one day he pulled me to the side.

"Naruto, do you have any idea what happened to Sakura?" he whispered, despite the fact that she was nowhere near us.

"… What do you mean?"

He sighed irritably and grabbed my shoulders. "Don't act dumb, you know very well what I'm talking about."

I held down a smirk. "Let's see… it seems as if she's set her sights on becoming the Hokage."

The silence that proceeded was only less strange than the laugh that accompanied it. After he was done cracking up he took a deep breath and stared into my eyes.

"… Are you being serious?"

"… Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well…" he looked away awkwardly, "… she's only a civilian… as in she's not from a clan…"

"… Was the fourth Hokage from a clan?"

He shook his head. "But still… it's really unlikely that she'll become… Hokage…"

"Really? ... Then who do you think is most suitable from our generation to be Hokage?"

"… Probably you," he murmured, since this was no doubt a hard confession for him.

I smirked. "… And am I from a clan?"

He froze and gaped at me – after all, it wasn't common knowledge that I was from the Uzumaki clan.

"Well? Anything to say about Sakura's chances of becoming Hokage?"

He began shaking his head, but he quickly awoke from his stupor and nodded fiercely. "Yes!"

I raised an eyebrow. "And what is it?"

He looked up at me, and I immediately got the same feeling that I got from seeing Rock Lee – his eyes burned with passion, and his face fully portrayed his determination.

"As long as I'm here… she won't become Hokage! I will!"

Although I was impressed by his resolve, it's safe to say that I was more than a little surprised, and I began to despair as I thought ahead to our future training sessions.

 _I just hope that Rock Lee doesn't meet Sasuke or Sakura…_

…

When Sasuke revealed his new dream Sakura was quick to announce that she wished for the same, causing Sasuke to become quite competitive whenever we began a new training activity. Surprisingly Sakura didn't hold back either, and Kakashi explained why a few days later, while the other two were desperately trying to complete an activity.

"It's because she's happy that he's acknowledging her," Kakashi stated, his eyes following my movements as I threw kunai at a target. "A girl like her, who likes being the centre of attention but can't get attention in the very job she occupies due to being overshadowed by others, would love it when the very people who could once breeze past her were finally stopping to glance at her."

 _So in a way, she's just like Naruto, looking for approval and acknowledgement…_

"I take it you're the one who motivated her so much?" Although it was posed as a question, I could tell that he already knew the answer. "… Why did you bother? You don't strike me as the kind of person ignorant of the politics of shinobi, yet you willingly encouraged her to a position which deals almost exclusively with such politics?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Do you disagree with what I did?"

"No, of course not! Our village _needs_ a leader, and if it was someone from team 7 then I would rejoice happily. It's just… maybe you should have left her to choose for herself in the future. You guys are just kids; you don't need to be exposed to the brutality of the shinobi world so early."

When I glanced at him out of the corner of his eye he had a sad look as he gazed towards his hands, and I could tell that he was thinking of the moment when he had stabbed Rin, his teammate, with a Chidori.

"Sensei," I began, "… When were you exposed to the shinobi world?"

He jerked up and turned to me, his eyes slightly wide. "… Why do you ask?"

"Well… it sounds as if you don't want me to make the same mistake as you, exposing myself to the shinobi world early on…"

He stared at me for a while before sighing and looking away. "… You're right. I was unlucky enough to be born into a time when the entire world was torn with war and strife, and I was thrust to the front lines at an age younger than yours…"

The longer he spoke, the more bitter his voice sounded, and he began clenching his fists ever so slightly, signs which spoke to me of his scarred heart.

"… And you're still a ninja after experiencing all of that?" I asked, shocked at how he could bear all the pain. It wasn't that I didn't know exactly what he had been through; it was just that when the events were relayed by him they sounded as if they had been much more painful than what was portrayed in the anime.

He nodded. "Sometimes I wondered myself why I kept on being a ninja. After all that I had been through, I was ready to quit. However, I persisted, and eventually I came to a conclusion that my whole life had been building up to: that was, I would change this world with my own two hands for the better. I would stop the war, strife and suffering by uniting the ninja nations. No matter what the price."

The tone of his voice when he said the last sentence was grating and rough, and he was clenching his fists so hard they were shaking. Then suddenly, his fists relaxed, and he reclined to the ground.

"It wasn't until a few months ago that I knew how to go about this, and it was only because of a chance encounter. At first, I wasn't sure if I could do what it would take; I wasn't sure if I was up for the job. In fact, I still wasn't sure today."

… _Is he… is he talking about… Obito and Akatsuki!?_

Then he slowly got back up and stood on his two feet, facing Sasuke and Sakura. "But I think… I think talking to you was the difference. I've decided that, no matter what it takes, no one should have to go through anything anywhere nearly as dangerous as what I have had to go through, especially if it's a child like you."

He clapped his hands together to get the attention of Sasuke and Sakura and signalled that training was over, causing the two to stop sparring and make their way to the exit of the training ground after waving us goodbye. After they left, he turned to me.

"That's why, Naruto, I need to thank you. Although we may never see each other again, know that in my heart, team 7 will always exist."

As he spoke he retreated to the forest, and once again I saw Obito approaching from far away.

"Wait, Kakashi!" I called out. "Are you sure about this? This decision you're about to make, is it the right decision? Would the Hokage approve of it?"

He shook his head, getting closer and closer to the first few trees. "Sometimes, Naruto, you will be forced to do something only you approve of."

By now I was panicking. "Wait! What about your father!?"

Kakashi's response convinced me that there really was no saving him – he had been completely brainwashed by Obito. His face tightened visibly and his eyes narrowed.

"… What about him?" he asked rhetorically, his voice cold and cutting. "He died a long time ago!"

As I gaped at him, he reached out to Obito, who was by then right behind Kakashi. As Obito activated Kamui, Kakashi left me with one final message, although his voice was distorted by the ripples caused by Obito's teleportation ability activating:

"… If all goes to plan, then no one will have to worry about death anymore anyway…"

…

Saying that I was shocked would have been too much of an understatement. I had begun to have an inkling that Kakashi had been in contact with Obito, but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that Obito had convinced him so thoroughly to join Akatsuki. I must have believed that there would be no way that Kakashi would leave Konoha, seeing how loyal he was to his village in the anime.

… _Well, I think it's safe to say that this world is… different from what was portrayed in the anime…_

After making sure that I wasn't trapped in a genjutsu and that Kakashi had completely left the training ground I rushed straight to the Hokage's office, rushing to the front desk and slamming my hands down in front of the secretary.

"I need to speak to the Hokage immediately!" I exclaimed, causing her to gasp in shock. When she realized who I was she calmed down and put on a slightly disdainful look.

"You must register for an appointment if you wish to meet the Hokage," she said, turning back around to what she was doing before.

I resisted the urge to shout. "Even if it means allowing a jonin to be kidnapped?"

She whipped her head round and stared at me. "What did you say!? A jonin has been kidnapped!?"

I nodded grimly. "Yes. So, can I meet the Hokage now?"

She gulped and stood up quickly. "Wait here!" She rushed off to the Hokage's office and came back after roughly a minute, with Hiruzen following closely behind her.

When he saw me his eyes widened and he gestured for me to follow him to his office, closing the door behind him after we entered the room. After going through a few seals – probably to keep sound from escaping the room – he turned to me and gestured for me to speak.

"Kakashi left the village with a masked man, who used some sort of teleportation jutsu to transport the two."

He frowned. "Kakashi? And he went willingly?"

"Yes." Hiruzen's eyes flashed, and I wasn't sure if he was angry or disappointed. "Before leaving, he spoke to me of how he would do anything he could to attain world peace, no matter the price." I went on to convey what I could remember of what Kakashi had said.

After a few seconds of silence Hiruzen breathed out slowly. "That… sounds oddly chilling…"

I didn't say anything, instead waiting for him to ask me a question.

"… Had Kakashi been acting strangely before today?"

I shook my head. "I've only known him for two weeks, so I can't say anything for sure, but he's been like that ever since I first saw him."

This statement caused Hiruzen's shoulders to sag, and I instantly knew what he was thinking.

"Hokage-san, don't presume that it is your fault. You may be a legendary ninja, but even _you_ are human. There will be something from time to time that escapes even your knowledge and observance."

He turned to me, and the look he had on his face was almost pitiful. "I know, but… it still doesn't make it hurt any less…"

After calming himself down he called several ANBU into the room and gave them some instructions, causing them to rush out of the office.

He sighed one more time and turned to me. "Naruto… we'll allocate a new jonin to lead team seven, so you just focus on training yourself." He ushered me to the door and patted me on my back. "For now, put all of this out of your mind and get some rest." I glanced out of the window – it was rapidly approaching dusk.

I took a step out of the office before turning around once more. "… What will happen to Kakashi?"

The silence that followed made it clear that Hiruzen himself had been debating this question. "… Who knows? We'll have to capture him first and ask him for his side of the story."

I began making my way out of the office.

"… And if he doesn't hand himself in willingly, we may even have to declare him a criminal…"

As I walked back home, Hiruzen's last words played in my mind over and over again, gradually being replaced by Kakashi's words.

… _Which of the two is right? Is Hiruzen right for declaring Kakashi a criminal, after Kakashi abandoned his village? Or is Kakashi right for following what he considers the best path to world peace? … Is there even an answer?_

 _And what about the Infinite Tsukuyomi? Is it_ really _an evil jutsu? All it is doing is ensuring world peace, right?_

After a few seconds I shook my head vigorously and cleared my mind of these thoughts.

 _No. I'd rather live a life of freedom, knowing that I could make my own choices, than live in a genjutsu, even if the genjutsu world is perfect. Only by experiencing the worst can you truly feel the best. In my eyes, what Kakashi is doing… is wrong!_

…

The next day when I went to team 7's usual meet-up place near the Hokage's building I found, along with Sasuke and Sakura, Yamato. He was engaged in conversation with the two but when he saw me he stopped and got up.

"Naruto, right?" I nodded. "I'm Yamato, and I'll be the new leader for team seven."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Yamato-sensei."

"I'll start off by finding out just how skilled you are by sparring with you one by one. That way, I can decide what to teach each one of you."

We made our way to a training ground, and Sasuke offered to go first.

"Very well. You may begin!" Yamato called out.

Sasuke immediately rushed to attack with his Sharingan blazing, launching himself into a flying kick which was smoothly avoided by Yamato. However, Sasuke seemingly predicted this and swung his leg down, forcing Yamato to roll out of the way. While Yamato was still on the ground Sasuke threw several kunai at him, and as Yamato blocked the kunai Sasuke went throught several hand seals.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball jutsu!" As the fireball shot towards Yamato Sasuke jumped up high into the air, Yamato's view of him obstructed by the fireball.

 _He's thinking several steps ahead… getting Yamato to the ground to force him to block the kunai, allowing Sasuke to use a jutsu… using the jutsu to prepare himself for another attack… people say that Itachi was far more deserving of the prodigy title, but from what I've seen, Sasuke deserves it just as much…_

While he was in the air Sasuke threw several shuriken with wires attached to them, setting the wires alight in the process. The shuriken flew into the fireball in front of them, and an instant later several dull thuds could be heard.

"… I must say, I'm quite impressed, Sasuke," Yamato's voice rang out, and as the fire slowly died down it was revealed that he had constructed a wood wall. "Even if I wasn't taking this entirely seriously, the fact that you managed to make me use my signature Wood Release is quite something. I think I've seen quite enough."

As Sasuke landed and turned to us he displayed his satisfied smirk, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

Surprisingly, Sasuke smirking seemed to have lit a fire in Sakura, so she quickly volunteered to go next.

Unlike Sasuke she didn't rush straight in, preferring to hang back and form a battle plan. After a few seconds Yamato sighed and brought out some kunai.

"In a real battle, your enemy wouldn't give you enough time to make a plan! You need to think more on your feet!" He threw the kunai at her, forcing her to step to the side. As Yamato threw volley after volley of weapons he moved closer, and soon enough he was close enough to begin striking at Sakura. She did her best to avoid his attacks, but he was just too fast and powerful for her, causing her to be launched back.

… _I guess she really can't match up to Sasuke after all…_

The entire time, Sasuke had been watching Sakura get tossed around with tensed hands and gritted teeth. Soon, he could take it no more.

"Sakura!" Sasuke called out, getting the attention of everyone else. "What's this!? Don't you want to become Hokage!?"

Sakura gasped as she forced herself to stop retreating.

"If that's the case, then show me how a Hokage fights!"

As Sasuke's voice rang out in the clearing Sakura looked down in shame, so she didn't see the kunai that Yamato had just thrown at her.

 _Oh no!_

Yamato was about to shout a warning as well, but we were all shocked into silence when she caught the kunai, raising her head to show us a fierce gaze.

 _She… she predicted the path and speed of the kunai just by seeing how Yamato was holding it! That's pure genius!_

Yamato must have reached the same conclusion, because he suddenly decided to raise the intensity of his attack, pressing forwards with impressive speed. Sakura rushed to meet him head on, but when he reached out to her head his hand simply passed through her body.

… _Genjutsu!_

Sasuke, the smug brat, must have detected the genjutsu as soon as Sakura had made it using his Sharingan, but both Yamato and I were fooled for a fraction of a second, which could be fatally long in a real fight.

When I dispelled the genjutsu the Sakura Yamato had just passed through vanished from my eyesight, with Sakura's real body appearing behind Yamato. At the same time another Sakura was going through a large number of hand seals in front of him, but this time, instead of using a genjutsu, Sakura had created one shadow clone.

Yamato narrowed his eyes and moved to attack the one behind him first since it was closer, swinging out with his fist. When this Sakura dodged the fist his eyes widened and he punched her again.

 _Since she dodged it so well she must be the real Sakura, since the shadow clone would have probably been hit by that attack._

However, in the time it had taken for Yamato to swing at Sakura the first time, the shadow clone had finished the long set of hand seals, and when Yamato's fist was about to connect with her she instantly used Kawarimi to switch with the clone which had been waiting behind Yamato, causing Yamato to strike the clone, which promptly exploded.

… _That was clever. She got a clone to perform the hand seals for Kawarimi since the jutsu requires a large number of hand seals, freeing her of that responsibility and allowing her to continue fighting to distract her foe. In essence, she used a primarily non-combat jutsu during combat!_

The jutsu Kawarimi was another aspect of this world incorrectly portrayed in the anime. The jutsu requires so many hand seals that rarely can it be used in a real fight; only elite jonin with a large amount of experience could pull it off, and only when fighting someone of a lesser level. The fact that Sakura was able to use it well in the midst of a battle, even if Yamato wasn't fighting completely seriously, showed just how intelligent she was.

Yamato was similarly shocked, but he quickly formed a wood wall to block Sakura's punch, which she had enhanced with chakra, based on the tendrils of chakra I could see escaping her hand.

When her fist landed on the wood she blasted half way through the wall, creating a decent-sized crater slightly bigger than her hand.

As Sakura hopped around in pain, clenching her fist and moaning out loud, Yamato simply stared at the indent in the wood in shock for a while, before shaking his head and gesturing for me to fight him next.

… _Well, both Sasuke and Sakura impressed greatly, so I can't perform any worse than they did… I guess I'll take this seriously then._

"First Gate - Gate of Opening: Open!"

Instantly I felt an incredible rush of chakra throughout my body, and a boundless vigour spread out through my muscles.

"Wha-"

I didn't even give Yamato time to speak – I burst forwards at a speed that almost made me dizzy, getting under his guard in less than a second. My fist rushed up to meet his jaw, and he only managed to avoid the blow by a hair's width. Nevertheless, I turned the uppercut into a forward palm strike, catching him in the stomach and blowing him back several steps.

After throwing several shuriken at him I launched myself into the air, dropping at a fast enough speed to send shivers through my bones. My drop kick was greeted by his wood wall, but after a moment of resistance I completely smashed through the wall, catching Yamato with a glancing blow.

As I stopped to catch my breath he held his hand out, signalling the end of the match.

"… If we were to continue fighting at this level I would have to get serious, and I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to guarantee anyone's safety if that happens."

I nodded in understanding and shut the first gate once again, stumbling a bit as the vigour which had been coursing through my body quickly left, leaving me feeling hollow.

"… How on earth can you operate the celestial gates?" Yamato asked after a few seconds of silence.

"The celestial gates?" Sasuke asked.

Sakura nodded, her face tense and her eyes wide. "The celestial gates – 8 tenketsu points in the chakra system which regulate the flow of chakra in the body. By forcing them open, one can gain a momentary boost in their physical abilities."

"The thing is, they are incredibly hard to open – usually, even elite jonin can only open a couple of the gates," Yamato added.

With this, Sasuke proceeded to stare at me in awe, a hint of jealousy creeping into his eyes.

"That should be enough for today," Yamato announced, shaking the other two from their stupor. "From tomorrow onwards I'll provide you each with specialised training programs, but for now you can get some rest."

As we made our way to the exit he called out, "Your team has the most talented genin I've ever seen; you can all go a long way - I'm sure of that." Although Sasuke seemed too tired to care, Sakura brightened up when he said that.

As I was too tired to hang around after using the celestial gates I quickly made my way home, avoiding anyone I knew to stop them from asking me questions. I collapsed in bed and was asleep in a matter of seconds.


	4. Chunin Exams

I don't own Naruto.

 **Chunin Exams**

Yamato proved to be a good teacher, giving each one of team 7 a certain training program to follow. As we trained he would either immerse himself in a book or train diligently himself, and several times I caught him weeping silently or staring off into the distance silently.

 _He's deeply affected by Kakashi betraying Konoha…_

Nevertheless, he soon stopped grieving over the loss of his role model, turning it into intense focus on making us stronger. Soon, I quickly came to value the little free time that I would have.

One day, as I was aimlessly wandering around Konoha, I came across the Yamanaka flower shop and decided to enter. There weren't many people inside due to the fact that evening was approaching, so I found that Ino, who was at the counter, had nothing to do, so I walked up to her.

When she heard my footsteps she looked up, and her face lit up when she realized who it was. "Naruto-kun! Finally, someone can save me from this boredom!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Boredom?"

She nodded convincingly. "Yep. Usually I love working here, but today there were barely _any_ customers."

"Fine, I'll do my best to entertain you."

In reality, that consisted mostly of just listening to her rambling on and nodding in appropriate moments, but I didn't mind, because I learned something about the differences of this world with the anime.

 _So Asuma actually took their training seriously from the sounds of it… what's up with the jonin? Are they all really that different from how they were portrayed in the anime? To be fair though, they are acting how they should be acting as jonin, as in they are training their genin…_

"So Naruto-kun, how are things on your end?"

"Well… we have a new jonin sensei called Yamato, and he's a good sensei… ah, of course! You'll be interested in knowing about Sakura's new dream."

She shook her head with a knowing smile. "I already know that she wants to become Hokage. Was it you who motivated her?"

I smiled wryly and nodded. "Although I didn't think she would develop a dream as great as that…"

Ino shrugged. "So? It'll be good for her, having such a dream to dedicate herself to." After a few seconds of silence she sighed and looked down. "… You know, she used to be bullied when she was a kid for her large forehead…" She glanced up to see how I would react to this.

I nodded slowly. "I came to a similar conclusion after she confided in me about her weakness."

"She confided in you!?" Ino gasped. "Although you may not know, Sakura doesn't confide in _anyone_! I'm the only person she's told her deepest feelings to!"

I declined from commenting, spotting a customer approach the desk to purchase a flower. After the customer had left I turned to Ino with a serious look on my face.

"Ino, I'll say one last thing before leaving, so listen carefully."

I didn't mean to say it in a particularly demanding voice, but it still came out as an order rather than a request. To my surprise, instead of commenting on my demanding tone, Ino simply put all of her attention on me, her eyes marginally wider than usual in an attempt to listen carefully.

"Konoha… is peaceful. That much is obvious. This peace… it's what we seek; it's what all ninja seek when they become ninja. Unfortunately, this peace comes with a price – the lack of knowledge and preparation for the outside world.

Ino, the shinobi world is a brutal world. Genin like us – although I hate to say it – are usually the first to die. More experienced ninja from other villages will know about our experience and will come for us like we're missing ninja.

But why am I telling you this? I mean, I'm sure you already know about this, after all, so why am I bothering to repeat something like this again?"

At this point I stopped speaking and placed my hand under her chin, lifting her head up to force her to look into my eyes.

"Because, you see, you don't really understand just how brutal the outside world is. Someone like you, a candle in the wind, could get blown out at any moment. … But it doesn't have to be like that. It's your choice. Choose wisely."

I let go of her and retreated, making my way to the exit of the shop.

"Ino… I didn't say all this to scare you – I just said this because I don't want to see you die."

This caused a slight blush to appear on her face, but I forced myself to ignore what that implied.

"So please… don't die."

This time the blush fully manifested itself on her face, but at the same time she nodded fiercely, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar in shock.

As I walked back home I thought about why I had just given that speech.

… _Do I really care about her life? Isn't she just an anime character? … Does this mean that, after spending time with the people of this world, I no longer view them as anime characters? Then… what about my old universe, and the people inside there? What are they to me now?_

… _I'm spending too much time pondering over pointless questions. Why does it matter? I live in this world, so I'll deal with the problems in this world! Simple as that!_

…

After a few weeks of training in solitude, Yamato finally gathered team 7 together during a training session.

"Up until now, you have only been taught to become an all-round ninja. While it's true that this is beneficial in itself, eventually you will come to realize that having your own style allows you to excel in what you're best at, developing a fighting style that lets you utilize your strengths to the limits. I want you to start thinking about making your own styles from now on, and you can gradually change your training programs to fit these styles."

After a few seconds of silence Sakura raised her hand. "But, Yamato-sensei… what if you don't know how to make your own style?"

He nodded in understanding. "In that case, try to base your style on another ninja, preferably a ninja whose style you know well."

"… Check out the styles of Tsunade and Tobirama Senju if you're stuck; I think those two would suit you the most."

Yamato looked at me quizzically.

"Well, Tsunade was famous for her chakra control and medical ninjutsu, and Tobirama was famous for being intelligent, so…"

He nodded once again. "And Sasuke? Any idea who you'll take inspiration from?"

He smirked. "Of course. My brother Itachi-nii is enough inspiration."

Yamato finally turned to me. "And you?"

I shook my head, and he nodded in acceptance. "Alright. I want you all to start working on your styles from now on, okay?"

As we left the training ground, I couldn't stop a smirk from emerging.

 _You want_ me _to take inspiration from someone else!? Please!_

…

"… That's all. You may leave now," the Hokage said, and Yamato got up to exit the office.

"… Hokage-san?" Yamato stopped upon hearing my voice, and the rest of my team, along with HIruzen, turned to me. "Are there any C-rank missions we can accept? I'm tired of constantly doing D-rank missions that require no skill."

Yamato frowned. "Naruto, don't presume you're ready for C-rank missions on your own."

Sasuke huffed audibly. "But we _are_ ready, aren't we? Besides, Naruto's right about D-rank missions requiring no skill."

Sakura said nothing, choosing to nod silently in agreement.

Yamato sighed and was about to reprimand us, but Hiruzen held his hand up and began to speak. "I see you can't take the boredom anymore, huh? Very well, I will allow you to accept this C-rank mission." He handed a sheet to Yamato, who skimmed over the briefing quickly. "You're lucky, because this is the only C-rank there's been for several days now, and I was hesitant to give it to any team. I'm sure you can benefit the most from the experience you'll gain."

The mission indeed did turn out to be escorting Tazuna to the Land of Waves, just as I had hoped for. We met up the next day near the main entrance to Konoha, finding Yamato and Tazuna waiting for us.

After introductions and a short briefing from Yamato we set off, leaving Konoha in our wake.

 _Finally, I'm leaving Konoha…_

I didn't expect much from the trip, and I was proven correct as the journey itself was virtually uneventful. Occasionally Sasuke would challenge me to a spar, which Yamato limited to taijutsu only to stop us from tiring out, but even these spars were boring as Sasuke himself wasn't trying hard, preferring to anticipate any enemy attacks. Similarly, I also remained wary, looking for the puddle that signalled the Demon Brothers' arrival.

To my surprise, we didn't come across a puddle in the entire journey, and in a week we were able to arrive at Tazuna's hut.

… _What's going on? Why weren't we attacked, not even by Zabuza?_

The next day we set off to protect Tazuna and the builders while they built a bridge, and again nothing happened.

… _Why is no one attacking!?_

This continued for several days, and soon Tazuna had one more day to complete the building of the bridge. By this point Sasuke and Sakura had visibly relaxed, and even Yamato didn't show any signs of tension.

 _Although that could be because he never shows it anyway…_

However, I remained vigilant until the last day, confident that Gato would send Zabuza and the rest to attack us. I got jumpier and more irritable, barely able to stop myself from shouting at my teammates to stay alert.

As the builders continued working on the last day, a thin mist began descending. At first it was barely noticeable, and even several hours later it wasn't as thick as I thought it would be, but it was enough to get my hear racing and convince me to pull out a kunai.

"… Why are you pulling out a kunai?" Sasuke asked. "You don't _actually_ think that we're going to get attacked?"

I narrowed my eyes. "When… have I ever been wrong?"

Just as Sasuke was preparing to reply to that comment a scream ripped through the eerie silence hat had fallen, and Yamato immediately rushed to the location.

"What was that!?" Sasuke exclaimed, and Sakura came running towards us a few seconds later.

"We're being attacked by a group of mercenaries!" she cried out, and almost simultaneously a man jumped out of the mist behind her to swing a sword towards her.

Sasuke, his Sharingan already active, had anticipated the attack and threw several shuriken at the man, forcing him back. Sasuke proceeded to charge at the man, shouting at Sakura to get her to help. "Sakura, move! Cast a genjutsu or something!"

As the two attacked the man two other mercenaries approached me from the other side, forcing me to focus on them.

… _Where's Zabuza? And why are these henchmen attacking now?_

I sidestepped several swings from the first attacker and swiped at his head, but the second mercenary threw a kunai at me and forced me to move back. At the same time, a third mercenary arrived next to the first two.

 _Damn it! I need to finish this fight quickly!_

"Water Release: Wild Water Wave!" I spit out a decent quantity of water, overwhelming the mercenaries and making them drop to their knees. Wasting no time, I immediately closed in and knocked them out by delivering several blows to their heads.

Turning around, I found Sasuke finishing off a mercenary who had been trapped in a genjutsu, with Sakura moving on to find Tazuna. Sasuke turned to me and held his hands out. "What should we do now? Just go around defeating the mercenaries?"

I shook my head. "That will take too long, especially with this mist. I'll try clearing this mist away with a wide-range Wind Release, and you cover me while we make our way to Tazuna and Yamato-sensei."

He nodded and immediately made a shadow clone, which began circling around me 10 metres away.

"Wind Release: Gale Palm!"

As I gradually cleared away the mist Sasuke took care of any mercenaries we came across, leaving a path clear of mercenaries in our wake. Soon, the mist had been mostly cleared from the bridge, and we found Yamato and Sakura defending Tazuna from a large onslaught of mercenaries.

 _Argh! Where's Zabuza!?_

As I frantically searched the bodies on the ground I spotted the Demon Brothers along with many mercenaries, but Zabuza and Haku were nowhere to be found.

 _What is going on!? Is he waiting for us to tire out?_

As we joined in the fight, Sasuke gestured for me to look towards the far end of the bridge, where I could see Gato watching the fight, surrounded by several bodyguards.

 _He's too far away to capture without having to kill his bodyguards… will I have to kill him? …_ Can _I kill him? Won't that make me a murderer?_

"Naruto! What are you going to do about him!?" Sasuke shouted, blocking a kick while he did so. "He'll get away if you don't do anything, and he's obviously the boss of this group!"

… _He's right. Guess I'm going to have to…_

"Sakura! Attach a wire to this kunai!" I tossed a kunai to her, and she immediately began attaching the wire.

"Everyone! Get back for a second!" Yamato called out, and we moved back a few paces. "Wood Release: Great Forest jutsu!" His arms quickly turned into wood, which grew at a rapid pace and twisted unpredictably, stabbing many of the mercenaries in the area.

"Naruto-san! I'm done!" Sakura quickly gave me the kunai, which I immediately launched at Gato, using chakra to propel the kunai. His bodyguards caught the kunai, but that was only the start of the attack.

"Sasuke, fire!" Surprisingly, both Yamato and I shouted the same thing at the same time for different reasons, but thankfully Sasuke already had a clone.

"Fire Release: Dragon Fire jutsu!" The clone spat some fire at the wires, which rapidly made its way to Gato's group before they could react, causing an explosion when it reached them.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball jutsu!" Meanwhile, the real Sasuke set fire to the wood which Yamato had detached from his body, causing more mercenaries to drop in defeat.

Soon enough the rest of the mercenaries were defeated and restrained, and Tazuna quickly explained the situation with Gato taking over the Land of Waves and terrorizing the people with his henchmen – that we had just defeated.

"… So we just solved your problem?" Sasuke pointed out.

Tazuna chuckled nervously. "Haha, yes, indeed you have. I must thank you very much."

Yamato frowned. "That means that you lied about the nature of the mission then, doesn't it?"

Tazuna nodded shamefully.

"But Yamato-sensei, it's alright, isn't it?" Sakura asked. "I mean, we didn't get hurt or anything…"

Yamato kept his stern face for a few seconds before sighing and nodding. "… I guess you're right. Fine – I won't report this. This will be kept a secret, understand?" We nodded silently.

While we stood watch over the mercenaries and Gato one of the builders rushed to the village, returning after a few minutes with a large group of villagers, who immediately began thanking us before tying up the Gato and his henchmen securely and taking them back to the village.

After they had mostly finished, Tazuna turned to us. "Once again I must thank you immensely for your help – I don't know what we would have done without you."

Yamato sighed and motioned for team 7 to start moving. "Well, I guess it's time for us to go now."

"Yamato-sensei, can I just quickly ask Tazuna-san something privately?"

Yamato raised his eyes at me but nodded nevertheless, and the rest of my team began walking to give us some space.

"What's up?" Tazuna asked me.

I leaned in and whispered into his ear, "Do you know of a mercenary hired by Gato called Zabuza Momochi?"

"Zabuza Momochi? ... No, can't say I've heard that name…" Tazuna replied, scratching the back of his head in an attempt to remember.

I kept back a sigh and waved goodbye, jogging to catch up with the rest of my team.

"… What did you ask him?" Sasuke asked.

I shook my head. "Nothing important…"

…

Yamato had already informed us of the Chunin Exams which were due to take place around a week after we returned from the mission, so we spent the week training in the forests instead of in a training ground as usual to avoid being spied upon by rivals. On the day of the exams I made my way to the location, finding Sasuke and Sakura waiting for me.

"Aren't you nervous, Naruto-san?" Sakura asked me.

I shook my head. "It's just a test. I'm confident I can pass." Sakura marvelled at my confidence while Sasuke huffed and looked around. "… Also, my name is Naruto, not Naruto-san…"

It didn't take long for us to get to the place where the undercover chunin were holding back several genin with a genjutsu, and I quickly stopped Sasuke from announcing that he could detect the genjutsu.

"It's meant to be a secret test…" I murmured, causing Sasuke to nod and proceed silently.

Soon we had reached the room where the participants were gathered, and Sasuke stopped us just before we entered.

"Just before we enter, I'm going to say this – I plan to pass this exam and become chunin. I don't care how hard the test is or how strong our rivals are. I _will_ pass. So you'd better not hold me back!"

I smirked and nodded, while Sakura raised her fist in the air. "Of course!" she exclaimed. "We'll _all_ pass this test!"

"That's right… after all…" muttered Sasuke, pushing the door open and splaying his arms out wide as he walked in with a confident smirk. "… We're not here to take part – we're here to take over!"

Annoyingly, he had his fully developed Sharingan blazing as he entered, so the first thing the competitors noticed about him was the colour of his eyes.

"That's… the Sharingan!" I heard a contestant mutter, causing several others to begin conversing.

As we walked to where the rest of the Konoha genin were gathered a ninja slammed his hands on the desk in front of him. "Don't get cocky just because you have red eyes!" he roared, attracting the attention of all of the other contestants.

 _That's… no way! What's he doing here!?_

As soon as I glimpsed his unruly orange hair and savage looks I instantly recognized who it was.

 _Why!? Why is he an Iwa ninja!?_

Not only that, but the girl next to him, with her obsidian eyes and short hair, a confident look on her face as she sat back relaxed, caused alarms to flash in my mind.

… _What's going on!? Why are Kurotsuchi and Jugo participating in the Chunin Exams!? Why isn't Jugo with Orochimaru!? … Or is Jugo working undercover to help Orochimaru during the Konoha Crush? But that doesn't explain why he's with Iwa, and why Kurotsuchi is participating!_

As Sasuke and Jugo began sparring verbally I looked around the room to see if there were any other inconsistencies with the anime.

 _That's… that's Kimimaro! And Haku! And Chojuro! And Suigetsu! What the fuck's going on!? Why is Kiri's main team so overpowered!? Why aren't Kimimaro and Suigetsu with Orochimaru!? And Kumo's main team has Omoi and Karui… Suna's team is the only normal one! Although I can hardly call the Sand Siblings normal… And that's Fu! Although she's sleeping… but hang on! Karin isn't from the same village as Fu! Aah! My mind is going to explode!_

I barely had enough time to calm down before Ibiki Morino walked in, followed by several proctors.

"Quieten down! The test is about to begin!" his voice rang out, causing the noise level to gradually drop. "Get into an unoccupied seat!"

What followed was an explanation of the first round, but I already knew the rules so I didn't bother listening, choosing instead to check out the new contestants. Soon the test papers were handed out and the test had begun. Since I didn't want the proctors to think I already knew the purpose of the exam I attempted to answer the questions, but I didn't try too hard.

After an hour Ibiki called for the attention of the participants, signalling the end of the written exam. After introducing the last question and explaining the rules for this question many participants opted to leave the exam, reducing the number of participants by a significant amount.

Thankfully, none of the Konoha ninja or the main players from the other villages gave up or even looked like giving up, so there was no need for me to raise their morale the same way Naruto had. As a result, the number of contestants left was quite little – less than half of the original number.

As Ibiki was preparing to leave the windows were suddenly smashed as Anko came flying in from outside, wielding a banner stating: 'The amazing proctor of the second exam: Anko Mitarashi!'

After a bright and loud introduction she ordered us to follow her down to the courtyard overlooked by the room we were in, proceeding to jump out of the window to get there. As the participants made their way down the stairs two stood out: both Jugo and Suigetsu chose to jump out the window just as Anko had.

 _Oh?_

It didn't take long to reach the courtyard, where we found the two being questioned by Anko.

"Well, you told us to follow you…" Suigetsu shrugged nonchalantly.

Anko smirked at this answer. "You got me there. And what abou you? Same reason?" She turned to Jugo.

"Hey, listen here! I don't follow other people! I jumped out because it was faster!" he exclaimed. He was about to keep speaking when Kurotsuchi appeared behind him, her hand clamped around his mouth and her face portraying her irritation.

"Not another word. Do you want me to take the seal off?" she muttered angrily, although it was quite loud. Surprisingly, Jugo immediately stopped struggling and went white, so Kurotsuchi let him go.

 _Seal…?_

Soon, all of the participants had gathered in the courtyard and Anko had explained the rules, so the teams split up to sign the necessary papers and obtain their scroll.

"So we need an Earth scroll…" Sakura muttered, looking at the Heaven scroll in her hand.

"How fitting," smirked Sasuke, "that the team that will come out on top gets a Heaven scroll."

"I'm not so sure about that…"

He turned to me. "What do you mean?" Sakura focused on me as well.

I narrowed my eyes. "I've done a lot of research, and I can tell you that there are at least two ninja from each village that realistically could defeat us in one-on-one fights."

Sasuke's eyes widened before relaxing. "… So? Just because they can, doesn't mean they will, does it?"

Sakura was about to voice her opinion when a shout cut throughout the courtyard. "Who here wants to be my friend!?" I was unsurprised to find that Fu had shouted this.

"… Friend?" Now it was Gaara. "… You are one of _us_ , yet you mention that word?"

' _Us'? … Does he mean Jinchuuriki?_

"What do you mean by _us_?" Jugo asked, voicing the thoughts of the surrounding genin.

Gaara paused for a second before whipping his head round rapidly, staring at Jugo with a tilted head. "… you wouldn't get it…" he almost rasped.

Jugo was about to explode again, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him, and as he turned Kurotsuchi was revealed behind him.

 _Again with the seal…_

As the genin conversed with each other while they waited for the exam to start I looked around, spotting what I was looking for lurking in the shadows of the classroom we had left – although I had to squint.

 _Good, Itachi's in place…_

Soon the exam began, and we immediately made our way into the Forest of Death.

"What's our plan?" Sasuke asked. "Shall we just head straight to the centre, where all the other teams will be heading?"

Sakura nodded. "That's the best plan I can think of, but it will only work if we're quick."

"Then let's step on it!" Sasuke urged, and we hurried forwards faster than before.

While we ran Sasuke had his Sharingan active, and it was with the Sharingan that he detected something and ordered us to slow down.

"What is it, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, slightly fearful at the sudden change in pace.

"Look for yourself…" he pointed in a direction, and soon we could see three ninja stood still on the ground.

"… What are they doing? Why aren't they moving?" Sakura asked.

 _That's… Orochimaru and his followers in disguise! Itachi must have already trapped them in a genjutsu, so he must be nearby…_

I instantly rushed forwards to the three, ignoring the cries of my teammates. After rummaging through the pockets of Orochimaru I found what I was looking for – a scroll.

 _And it's an Earth scroll, no less! Lucky!_

As I returned to the two I showed them the scroll, and they stared at it incredulously.

"No… way… we're _so_ lucky…" Sakura muttered.

Sasuke frowned as we sped to the tower in the centre of the forest "But… what were they doing there?"

I shrugged. "Who knows? Let's just be thankful that we could pass this test so easily…"

 _Anyway, you're going to need to conserve your strength for the upcoming battles…_

I wasn't surprised when Sasuke and Sakura gave each other a look to confirm the strangeness of the situation, but they didn't say anything further.

…

We ended up being the fastest team to the tower in the centre by quite a margin so we had the entire tower facilities to ourselves for the first day. Gradually more participants arrived, and after 5 days we were called to the large training room in the centre of the tower. The Hokage and Hayate Gekko introduced the next phase of the exam – the preliminary battles – before allowing participants to give up.

 _There's no Kabuto… I guess Shisui must have captured him as well._

You see, I _had_ thought this out carefully. I knew exactly where Orochimaru, Kabuto and Orochimaru's helpers would be during the exam, so all I had to do was get Itachi and Shisui to either get a holiday that day or simply pretend that they were ill. Granted, that took quite a while especially with Itachi, who was an ANBU captain by now, but all he had to do was talk to Hiruzen and pretend that he was tired from the constant missions and needed a break - the Sharingan helped him in that.

All the two had to do after that was to sneak into the Forest of Death during the second part of the Chunin Exams, and, let's be honest, for two Uchiha who have all fully matured their Sharingan to the three-tomoe state and had two of the strongest genjutsu in existence; it's not exactly hard for them to do that.

After that they proceeded to roam the forest, avoiding competitors and searching for their targets. All it would have taken was a single glance and both Orochimaru and Kabuto would have been captured instantly.

Anyway, back to the preliminaries. The first fight was being announced on a large screen while the contestants walked up to the balconies, and I only found out after I had reached a balcony.

 _Interesting… these fights might actually be amazing!_

 **AN: Are there any suggestions for fights you would like to see in the preliminaries and final rounds? I'll seriously consider these, as I'm stuck on fight pairings.**

 **These are the competitors to choose from: Rookie 9, Team Guy, Kimimaro, Haku, Suigetsu, Chojuro, Kurotsuchi, Jugo, Fu, Karin, the Sand Siblings, and a character I'll introduce next chapter.**

 **Thanks for the suggestions.**


	5. Preliminaries

I don't own Naruto.

 **Preliminaries**

The first match was immediately announced – Gaara versus Karin. As the two made their way down I heard Karin's team calling out words of support, so I took the time to glance at them.

The first was easily recognizable – Fu, the jinchuuriki of Chomei. She had a bright smile and was pumping her fists in the air as she attempted to reassure Karin, leaning slightly over the railings in the process.

The second team member was something strange. Based on the way Fu spoke to him and the way Karin looked at him for reassurance I could tell that they thought highly of him, but at the same time I had no idea who he was. He had long hair in a style similar to Neji's hair, but this ninja's hair colour was closer to Hashirama's brown hair. Surprisingly, this team member wasn't trying to reassure Karin, instead standing to the side quietly with his arms crossed, occasionally shaking his head slightly and sighing a little.

When Hayate signalled for the match to start Karin slowly approached Gaara, whipping out some kunai and launching them at him. The kunai were easily blocked by Gaara's sand, and Gaara rolled his eyes.

"Make this more interesting…" he murmured.

Karin gaped at him. "… Easy for you to say! You're the one with the impenetrable defence!"

"Don't let him get to you, Karin! Just keep trying your best!" Fu shouted enthusiastically. Karin gritted her teeth in response and charged at Gaara.

"Fine! I'm blaming you if this goes wrong!" Karin yelled before reaching Gaara, thrusting a kunai at him. The sand quickly rose to block the kunai, and every attack that proceeded was easily blocked yet again.

 _This fight is utterly pointless…_

Gaara seemed to have the same thought as well, as after around a minute of Karin's attacks doing nothing he had seemingly had enough, raising his hands up high. Karin instantly retreated, but the sand wave that Gaara proceeded to make was too big for her to dodge.

"Wait! I give up! I give up!" she cried out, and Hayate immediately appeared next to Gaara's side and told him to stop.

 _There's no way he's stopping because of that…_

I was proven wrong yet again when, after a few seconds of internal conflict, Gaara finally brought the sand wave down and turned around, walking out of the arena, although he couldn't completely hide his look of disappointment. Karin, meanwhile, rushed back to her team, shivering a little out of fear.

 _That boy in her team… who is he?_

The names of the next two participants were quickly called out, and Hinata and Neji made their way down. Seeing the matchup, I resisted the urge to cringe.

… _Wait! Although I haven't really talked to Neji, he's different now, as his father wasn't killed during the Hyuuga clan affair this time around!_

When the two Hyuuga reached each other Neji bowed deeply to Hinata, causing her to blush and quickly push him back up.

"I must apologize for what is to take place, Hinata-sama, but my duty to become a chunin for the village exceeds my duty to protect you."

Hinata waved him off. "N-no, that's perfectly fine! I-I'll be fine n-no matter what the outcome of this fight i-is!"

Neji sighed and got into the traditional Gentle Step stance. "Well then, let us begin."

What followed was pretty much a carbon copy of the fight in the anime. The only notable difference was that Neji wasn't trying to kill her so the gap in abilities wasn't quite as large as I would have thought, but it was still quite clear that Neji was stronger.

 _Hah…_

I couldn't help but want to help Hinata after seeing her so helpless, so I waited until the two were positioned so that only Hinata could see me before gesturing for her to look at me. When she glanced at me I displayed the sign for the Shadow Clone jutsu, and after a few seconds she nodded in understanding, immediately creating a clone.

Neji turned to me, a wry smile on his face and with one eyebrow lifted. "… The Byakugan has 360-vision…"

… _Oh yeah…_

Neji shook his head with a smirk as he turned back around. "… But simply adding numbers won't help her anyway."

 _We'll see about that…_

Nevertheless, I was impressed by what Hinata came up with. She brought out two kunai and connected the ends with wire, before passing one kunai to her clone. Then, the two simultaneously threw the kunai to either side of Neji, causing them to embed into the walls. At first I thought that she had missed since the kunai were so far away from Neji, but very quickly the wire was pulled tight, rushing rapidly towards Neji. He barely had enough time to duck underneath it before Hinata and her clone closed down on him.

"… Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms!" Hinata launched a devastating combo attack with her clone, both using the same technique and essentially making it the same as a 64 Palms attack. In addition, the clone began rotating around Neji as they attacked, making it harder for Neji to block the attacks.

… _Amazing! She can already use that technique?_

Despite her best efforts, the best Hinata could manage was force Neji back and bruise him slightly. As soon as she let up on her attacks Neji pressed forwards, releasing his own destructive 64 Palms variant and ending the fight.

 _In the end, Neji was just too powerful for her…_

After the fight, Neji carried Hinata to the infirmary, all while apologizing for hurting her again and again.

The next fight was Kurotsuchi versus Chojuro. As soon as the fight began, both ninja went through the same set of hand seals.

 _Are they both using the same jutsu?_

"Water Release: Wild Water Wave!" Chojuro completed his faster and spat out a decent volume of water.

"Water Release: Water Trumpet!" To counter the fact that she was slower, Kurotsuchi jumped up when releasing her jutsu, causing it to crash down on Chojuro's jutsu.

 _So they're both skilled enough to produce that much water solely using their chakra…_

"Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder!" Chojuro splayed his hands out and fired a blast of electricity into the water, which proceeded to rush to Kurotsuchi.

 _He can use that nature transformation as well? … Or maybe it's just that he knows that one jutsu…_

The attack quickly reached Kurotsuchi and shocked her, causing her to drop to the ground. However, instead of taking advantage of this fact, Chojuro hesitated ever so slightly, allowing Kurotsuchi time to get back up and attack.

"Thanks for waiting!" she taunted before reaching him, launching a flying kick which he evaded.

"… Why did he hesitate?" Sasuke muttered. "He could have finished the fight!"

I shook my head. "Even if he hadn't hesitated, he wouldn't have been able to finish the fight with one more attack. There's no way this fight would end that quickly."

The taijutsu battle was slowly swinging in Kurotsuchi's favour because her intensity didn't allow Chojuro time to calm himself, and soon she completely broke through his guard, catching his chin with an uppercut and sending him flying.

"Hey, Chojuro, just bring out your sword already!" Suigetsu called out.

Unfortunately, Suigetsu was only talking about a regular sword which Chojuro had strapped to his side.

 _Doesn't he have the Twinsword?_

With a sword, Chojuro's superior reach made up for his slower reactions, and he was soon able to nick Kurotsuchi here and there with his sword.

 _If he really doesn't have it, it could just be that he hasn't trained in its usage, or it could be that Mangetsu Hozuki, the previous owner, is still alive…_

"That sword is annoying as hell!" Kurotsuchi shouted, jumping high into the air. "Let's see you cut this!" She rushed through a few hand seals, with Chojuro desperately closing down on her to prevent her from finishing. Suddenly she stopped going through the hand seals and threw some kunai with explosive seals attached to them at Chojuro, encircling him and forcing him to drop to the ground in cover.

"Get out of there, Chojuro!" Suigetsu called out, but it was no use as the explosions surrounded him. While Chojuro waited for the bombs, Kurotsuchi finished her jutsu and jumped up again.

"Lava Release: Quicklime Congealing jutsu!" The attack landed on where the explosions had previously taken place, meaning Chojuro was completely surrounded.

"… No! I can't end it here!" Chojuro muttered fiercely, although the fact that he spoke quietly indicated his lack of confidence. "Water Release: Gunshot!" Since this jutsu was less spread out and denser than his previous jutsu, I could guess that he was trying to force the quicklime away using brute force.

 _Ah, you just spelled your doom…_

Kurotsuchi similarly smirked triumphantly, as when the water reached the quicklime it only had enough force to make the quicklime splatter everywhere, covering Chojuro, while at the same time hardening to limit Chojuro's movements.

"Ha, idiot! Thanks for letting me win!" Kurotsuchi taunted as Hayate announced her as the winner on the basis that Chojuro couldn't keep fighting.

 _What a shame… if Chojuro had his sword, maybe then this fight would have gone differently…_

Rock Lee was unfortunate in having to fight Suigetsu. Before Suigetsu started using his clan's Hydrification jutsu Rock Lee was comfortably dictating the pace of the battle, but as soon as Suigetsu used the water present from the previous fight to activate his jutsu Rock Lee simply passed through him no matter what he tried.

Nevertheless, Suigetsu wasn't able to hit Rock Lee since Lee was too fast, and even when he tried to turn it into a battle of attrition Lee proved to have boundless stamina. In the end, after 30 minutes of fighting, Hayate came to the decision that both were to exit the Chunin Exams.

"What!?" Suigetsu exclaimed. "We didn't even give up or lose though! Shouldn't we _both_ go through?"

Hayate sighed. "I already explained the rules at the beginning. I'm not going through this again."

As Rock Lee walked back up the stairs he displayed his disappointment quite clearly. "Guy-sensei! I'm so sorry!"

Might Guy immediately arrived at his side and patted his back. "Lee, don't worry! You're chance to shine will arrive once more!" They quickly descended to the strange hugs and dancing that they always did when trying to comfort each other, each vowing to do a training feat more amazing than the last.

"Naruto Uzumaki versus Ino Yamanaka!"

Hearing my name snapped me out of my thoughts and I immediately made my way down, turning to face Ino as I arrived.

"… No hard feelings, yeah? I'm going to be taking this seriously."

She nodded vigorously. "Of course! I wouldn't expect anything less from you!"

I smirked. "In that case, I expect nothing less from you as well!"

… _Why Ino of all people? She might be able to find out my secrets… oh well. I'll deal with that if it ever comes to it._

"Begin!"

As soon as the match began rushed forwards, planning to relentlessly attack her to stop her from performing ninjutsu.

"Gate of Opening: Open!" I put on a burst of speed as my body was filled with boundless vigour, reaching her rapidly. I didn't want to hurt her gravely so I held back when I punched her, but it still caused her to fly back. I quickly sped to her as she stood up and locked her arm behind her back before placing a kunai to her throat.

"Give up. Don't make this hard for me."

"… How about no?" I was utterly shocked when she suddenly found enough strength to force me away before going on the offensive, forcing me to focus on defending.

 _How is she this strong!?_

Soon, she exhausted me to the point where I had no other choice but to reveal something I hadn't wished to reveal.

"… Argh! Gate of Healing: Open!"

 _Wait… why did I do that? I could have handled this without the second gate! Why did I suddenly reveal one of my trump cards!?_

The fight was quickly turning into an incredibly strange experience, what with me not thinking clearly and Ino displaying astonishing taijutsu.

 _This is too unreal! … Wait… a second… argh! The fluctuations in my chakra were too miniscule for me to realize that I'm in a genjutsu! Her chakra control is amazing!_

However, I was too late in releasing the genjutsu, as the first sight that greeted me was Ino's hands shaped in a triangular fashion.

"Mind Body Switch jutsu!"

After that, my mind went blank.

…

When I woke up, I found myself lying on a bed in what looked like the medical room of the tower in which the preliminaries were being held.

 _If I'm still here it must mean that I wasn't unconscious for too long… but why did I collapse? I didn't think that Ino's jutsu could do that…_

Soon after I had woken up a nurse came into my room and, after seeing that I was awake, called a doctor, with the rest of Team 7 and Ino following him in. The doctor quickly checked my condition before leaving to give me some privacy.

"So… what happened?"

Ino immediately averted her eyes in what I though was shame, so I turned to Sasuke. He shrugged nonchalantly. "What is there to it? You fainted in the middle of a fight!" He couldn't fully supress his smirk, so I rolled my eyes and turned to Yamato.

"Well, as soon as you left the genjutsu Ino fired her clan's signature jutsu at you, causing you to lose consciousness."

I nodded. "I know that, but why did I not wake up after?"

"The backlash from being hit with that technique causes you to lose consciousness even after the attacker has left your mind – you can think of it as if the attacker leaves your mind so quickly, they disorientate you and shock your mind into a state of unconsciousness," Yamato explained.

 _Another difference to the anime…_

"Forget that, what did _you_ do to _her_?In virtually no time at all Ino returned to her body and gave up immediately, all while shaking with fear! When we asked her why she had given up when victory was so close, she refused to speak! What did you do to her to scare her so badly!?"

I turned to Ino. As she glanced at me I could see that she still held some fear of me, but it was dominated by curiosity.

"… I'm sorry, but I can't tell you. Only Ino is allowed to know, and only because of what she experienced."

Sasuke and Sakura proceeded to bombard me with questions and complaints, nut I quickly shrugged them off and turned the focus away from me.

"So what happened to the preliminaries?"

Yamato spoke. "All of the matches were completed, and the final ten competitors have been decided. Those that qualified were: you, Sasuke and Neji from Konoha; Gaara from Suna; Kimimaro and Haku from Kiri; Omoi from Kumo; Kurotsuchi from Iwa; and Fu and Hayama from Taki."

"Hayama? Who's that?" I instinctively asked.

Yamato eyed me. "… Why did you single him out? All of the rest should have been unfamiliar to you."

I almost panicked at my mistake. "Y-yeah, I just said his name because it was the only one I could remember…"

Yamato raised an eyebrow but said nothing more.

"So Sakura, who did you fight?"

Sakura sighed sadly. "… Kimimaro. I didn't stand a chance. His taijutsu completely overpowered me, and he was skilled in genjutsu detection as well."

I leaned forwards. "This Kimimaro… was he fine? As in, did he have an illness?"

Sakura shook her head. "Why?"

"Oh, it's nothing…"

 _So Kimimaro doesn't have an illness… why? Why did the anime lie so much? And who's Hayama? If he's good enough to get to the finals, how have I never heard of him before?_

"Naruto…" Ino interrupted my train of thought. "If you don't mind, could I… speak to you privately?"

I hesitated for a second before facing the rest of my team. "Do you mind…?"

"Of course not." Yamato got up first and made his way out. "By the way, your first-round opponent is Omoi."

 _Omoi, huh? If he isn't too different from the anime this should be quite simple, but I can't rely on my own knowledge too much…_

As soon as they had left Ino whipped her head round rapidly and stared at me with concentration bordering on fanaticism. "… What… what secrets are you hiding, Naruto?

After a moment of silence I sighed deeply and looked at her. "… If I asked you to forget everything you saw, would you do it?"

Ino raised her eyebrow. "You think that of all people, _I_ will let this go?"

I sighed again. "… True. Fine, I'll tell you, but only on the condition that you _never_ reveal this information to _anyone_ without my permission. Got it?"

Without realizing, I had leaned forwards and grabbed her shoulders tightly, causing her to gasp audibly.

"Ah, sorry!" I quickly let go of her.

She gulped and nodded, looking down at her feet. "… Fine, I'll keep it a secret."

I smiled. "Thanks. That means a lot."

She glanced up at me and smiled back, red tingeing her face.

"So firstly, can you tell me what you saw in my mind?"

Her face immediately fell and she began breathing quickly. "I… I don't know how to explain it, to be honest… As soon as I entered your mind, all I remember was feeling an indomitable pressure, as if I was about to be crushed. I tried bearing it at first, but gradually I felt a presence emerge out of the darkness surrounding me. That presence…"

She had gradually quietened until I needed to strain my ears to hear her, and the last line she whispered so quietly I almost missed it.

"… That was no human conscience in the darkness…"

As she barely uttered these words I watched her face, and I could easily see the intense terror reflected in her eyes. Seeing her frightened state, I couldn't help but pity her. I reached out and wrapped my arms around her, causing her to stiffen at first.

"… I'm sorry. This is my fault."

She quickly pushed herself out of my arms and looked at me indignantly. "What are you talking about!? I'm the one that cast the jutsu, so the blame lies solely on me! Don't go blaming yourself out of nowhere!"

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "At the very least, you deserve an explanation."

So I proceeded to tell her about the heroic actions of Minato, the Fourth Hokage, that had resulted in his death and in the Kyuubi being sealed in me. As I told the story I carefully watched her reactions for a negative sign, but, apart from sadness and pity, she harboured no such emotions towards me.

"That…" She quickly wiped her eyes and looked up at me. "That's so sad! And you have to bear all that pain and suffering all by yourself?"

I smiled slightly. "That's why we're called Jinchuuriki – we're literally human sacrifices."

This time, Ino was the one to reach out and hug me, and the move was so sudden that I froze in shock. Feeling me tense, she patted my back softly.

"… Naruto, you always act so mature that you give off the feeling only experienced ninja do. Because of that, I was too scared to approach you when I first met you, so I couldn't really get to know you. However, after we became genin I was able to see more of you, and I discovered a side to your personality that I would have never though existed."

She leaned back but kept her arms on my shoulders, watching me intently as she continued speaking.

"Naruto… I know that you don't care about the way the villagers see you - I can sense it. You don't care about what anyone thinks of you, do you?"

I was tempted to shake my head, but I kept still to see what she was leading to.

"Naruto… why? Why do you act so mature despite being the same age as me?" Her face betrayed her confusion and sadness. "Why have you got to distance yourself away from everyone else!?"

I was stunned. As far as I was aware, I hadn't done anything to push others in my generation away from me, but apparently I had been mistaken.

"And you know, Naruto… for someone like me… to see you distancing yourself like that… it hurts!"

I gaped. "It… hurts? How?"

She shook her head sadly. "Of course you wouldn't get it. Sometimes, I wonder if you really _do_ see us as friends…"

… _Was it that obvious? Did I really just think of them as anime characters?_

After a moment of silence she sighed and moved back. "At any rate, I'll leave you alone if you're so desperate to be alone. Good luck in the finals." She walked up to the door and placed her hand on it, before looking back one last time. "And… goodbye."

For some reason, when she said goodbye like that it made me want to call out to her, as if she expected to never see me again. I stopped myself just before I raised my voice.

 _Why am I getting so worked up over this? She doesn't truly matter to the plot, right? I don't desperately need her, right? … So why do I care that she's leaving?_

Suddenly, I heard a deep voice chuckling from within me, although it sounded more like growling.

" **Brat, you're one of the coldest brats that I've ever come across, and I've lived for a** _ **long**_ **time."**

 _Kurama-san? What do you mean by that?_

" **Heh. Work it out yourself. I don't know if it's because you're mentally more mature than that girl, or if it's because you're from another world, but you sure do think lowly of her."**

 _I… look down on her? Do I really!? … No, that can't be true._

" **Really, genius? Then what do you call it in** _ **your**_ **world?"** Kurama snorted, his voice laced with sarcasm.

 _I just…_

" **Belittle her life, because you think she won't be important. This is what I hate about humans – you seem to think that** _ **you**_ **have the right to judge the rest of the world, as if** _ **your**_ **word is right and everything else is wrong."**

All of a sudden, Kurama had begun to rant at me.

" **What gives you humans the right to decide that, huh!? That's right - nothing! What gave that cursed Wood Release brat the right to imprison me, huh!? So what if he's protecting his village! The fact remains that** _ **he**_ **thought it was right to judge over** _ **me**_ **, despite us being completely unrelated! And that Uchiha brat, what gave** _ **him**_ **the right to use me as a weapon, huh!? And every Jinchuuriki there ever was – who gave them the right to imprison the Bijuu, huh!? WHAT GAVE HUMANS THE RIGHT TO DO ALL THAT!?"**

The last line was roared so loudly that I was sure it could have been heard from outside. Kurama went quiet for a moment before snorting quietly.

"… **But I guess I can expect nothing else from** **humans, the filthy creatures they are…"**

With that, he began receding back into the shadows.

 _Kurama… you may be right. Humans_ are _a despicable species, always thinking of nothing but themselves. We_ do _frequently pass judgement when we don't deserve to. We_ do _oppress anyone who disagrees with us._

… _However not all humans are like that. Once in a while, you'll find a human filled with good will and acceptance. They're rare – I know that much – but the good thing is that anyone has the potential to be like that, no matter how evil you are. And to prove that, I'll start off with myself._

I swiftly made my way out of the hospital and returned to Konoha, where I began scouring the village in an attempt to find Ino. Despite looking for almost an hour I couldn't find her, so I gave up and headed to the Uchiha clan complex. After explaining to the guards the purpose of my visit they allowed me in, so I quickly searched the complex and found Itachi training in solitude in one of their training grounds.

"Itachi, can you contact Danzo and get him to meet me at my house?"

Itachi nodded. "By what time?"

"As soon as possible. Also, get him to bring Orochimaru and Kabuto to ensure that they don't escape – you and Shisui help him escort the two to my house."

By the time I had arrive at my house the group was waiting for me, so I immediately got down to business.

"Originally, Orochimaru had planned to invade Konoha with his own hidden village, Oto, and the help of Suna. Danzo, I need you to investigate whether the invasion is still going to take place now that Orochimaru has been captured, and also find out if any other villages were going to participate."

Danzo nodded silently.

"Itachi, I need you to find out whether the Kazekage that is staying in Konoha is really Rasa or if he has been killed. While you're at it, you might as well find out if anything has happened to any of the other Kages. Finally, Shisui, I want you to patrol the streets of Konoha to ensure nothing happens. Got it?"

Just as the Uchiha duo were about to nod ripples in the air began to spread from a point directly in front of Orochimaru. Before anyone had time to react, the ripples increased in size to form a hole through which stepped out a figure wearing a black cloak. As soon as I saw the spiral-shaped mask I knew who it was.

 _Obito!_

Instantly, Obito had placed his hand on Orochimaru and Kabuto and activated Kamui, preparing to leave. Both Itachi and Shisui leapt up to stop him, but I knew that the only consequence would be that they would be teleported away as well.

Thankfully, when Shisui stopped moving I could tell that he had cast his genjutsu. For a moment it caused Obito to stop moving, but he instantly started moving again.

"What!?" Shisui exclaimed.

 _Damn it! Obito broke Orochimaru out of Shisui's genjutsu when he first arrived, and then Orochimaru broke Obito out of the genjutsu just now!_

By that time Obito had completely vanished, taking both of our prisoners with him.

… _Argh! Why didn't I just kill the two while I had the chance!? Damn it! And how did Obito know where Orochimaru was!?_

Danzo sighing quickly broke us me out of my stupor. "So… what do we do now?"

I gritted my teeth. "Although I hate it, the only-"

I stopped speaking when Obito immediately teleported back. In a flash, he had reached for Shisui's face and ripped out his eyes.

"Itachi!"

Itachi whipped his head round to face Obito, but he was already gone once again. Shisui collapsed to the ground as he held his face in agony.

… _What… the… fu-_

"Naruto! I'm taking Shisui to a hospital!" Itachi cried out, picking Shisui up and rushing out of the room. When he left I collapsed to the ground, despair spreading through my body.

Danzo got up. "Naruto-sensei, now is not the time to despair. We must act."

"But what can we do now!? He's already gone!"

"There's a chance that he might teleport back here, so we should rig this place with traps and seals set to go off at his arrival. Of course, that would mean that you would have to relocate houses." Soon, several Root members were at his side and had begun setting traps around the house. "Let's leave."

As I left the house, something persisted in the back of my mind.

… _Why did he take Shisui's eyes? Was it_ really _just because he wants the power that they offer? I mean, I'm pretty sure the normal genjutsu that any Mangekyo Sharingan casts is powerful enough as it is…_

As if reading my thoughts, Danzo answered my question. "He was most likely taking them in an attempt to awaken the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan."

I stopped. "What!? But I thought it was only between relatives, like brothers or parents…"

Soon, the truth dawned on me.

 _They're from the same clan… that might be good enough…_

"Although we can assume that the chance of awakening the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan is rarer the further away the relative is from you," Danzo commented. "In any case, this house is free, so you may stay here if you wish," he said, pointing at a house a block away from my previous house. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be going now."

As I stared at his retreating back, it soon blurred and transformed into Kakashi's back, and I my thoughts wandered to the day when Kakashi left.

 _Why? … Why is Obito so desperate? Why did Kakashi join him?_

Kakashi's back transformed into Obito's, which again changed to Itachi's back.

 _Does it have something to do with the Uchiha's Curse of Hatred? Why does something like that even exist? … Why did Indra have to reincarnate when he died? All he did was guarantee that my life would be tough…_

After Danzo had finally left, I decided to check up on Shisui, although I doubted that he was seriously hurt. When I arrived at the hospital Itachi greeted me and told me that Shisui was currently undergoing an operation, so I left the hospital, with no real idea of what to do for the rest of the day.

Upon leaving the hospital, I spotted Hinata approaching me.

"Hey Hinata. How can I help you?"

She twiddled her thumbs nervously. "Oh, um… I just w-wanted to say thank you… for helping me during my match…" her eyes flickered left and right before finally resting on me, waiting for an answer.

"Don't worry about it. Maybe you should base your fighting style on something using Clones."

She nodded dubiously, yet I could see that she didn't truly dislike the idea.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She hesitated at first. "My… my father is q-quite strict…"

… _Oh. Hiashi won't let her use anything other than the Hyuuga's traditional fighting style._

I sighed. "Hinata, do you want to know why your father is so strict?"

She gave me a guarded look but nodded nevertheless.

"Hinata… your father cares about you. That's why, when he sees you spar with such a timid nature, he can't help but feel as if you're not suited to become a ninja. The problem is that you're too soft-hearted – and although that's definitely not something bad in your everyday life, for a ninja, that can be fatal. Your father recognizes that, which is why he's so harsh on you."

She spent a few moments contemplating what I had just said before giving me a sad smile. "It's okay; you don't need to try to sugar-coat your words." For once she hadn't stuttered, but this was cancelled out by her self-pitying words. "I already know that I'm a worthless heir for the Hyuuga."

I frowned. "Strength isn't all that makes up a successful leader, you know."

She raised her head sharply. "But it's the most important aspect! And I… I don't have… no, I _can't_ get that strength…" Her head dropped once again, and this time tears began to stream down her face, splashing on the ground.

I narrowed my eyes. "Hinata." Reaching out, I clasped her chin and gently pushed her face upwards until she was facing me, and she stared at me with a look portraying her hopelessness.

 _Her pessimism is really starting to get annoying…_

"… For once… please… stop being so pessimistic!" I said this so forcefully that Hinata was taken aback, shocked that I would shout at her. "You've got so much potential, and with several loyal people by your side, you're guaranteed to become strong!"

She gave me a puzzled look when I mentioned people by her side.

"You don't know who's willing to support you? Well, for starters, you've got me; then you've got anyone from your clan – including Neji; your team will definitely be willing to support you, and I'm sure the other ninja from our generation would be willing as well… can't you see? You've got so much help, so all you need to do is to reach out and use it!"

After I had finished my speech, she promptly burst out crying, immediately making me feel guilty. I slowly wrapped my arms around her, patting her head in an attempt to comfort her.

"I-I'm s-sorry, Naruto-kun, it's j-just… th-they won't _actually_ help me, w-will they?" she blubbered.

"Why not?"

"B-because Hinata is… I'm s-such a useless ninja!" she cried out, hugging me tighter by the second.

I kept silent. I could feel her waiting for me to comfort her, but I was tired of seeing her acting so pitifully.

"… N-Naruto-kun?" she asked tentatively.

"… Maybe you _are_ useless." She gasped audibly and leaned back, staring at me to find any trace of a smirk or any indication that I was joking. She opened her mouth to speak, but I quickly placed my finger on her lips. "After all, you can't even see that there are so many people willing to help you improve, even with that Byakugan of yours."

As I took a step back I looked at her face to see her reaction, and found that she was utterly stunned.

 _Good. She'll only change with such a sharp wake-up._

Without waiting for a reply I left Hinata and began walking to the hot springs, looking for a certain ninja. It didn't take me long to find him attempting to peek into the ladies' section, furiously scribbling down notes simultaneously. I smirked.

 _At least_ some _things never change._

"Jiraiya!"


End file.
